Geoff Dumbreck
Profile
Geoff read theology at Peterhouse, Cambridge, graduating in
2005. He remained there to study for an MPhil and PhD, under the
supervision of Douglas Hedley. As a postgraduate he specialised in
the philosophy of religion; his doctoral thesis concerned Friedrich
Schleiermacher, the foremost Romantic theologian, and conceptions
of religious feeling. This led Geoff to examine psychological
accounts of affect, and he became increasingly interested in the
relationship between psychology and theology. He has supervised
undergraduates in the Faculty of Divinity taking papers on
philosophy of religion, ethics, doctrine, theology and science, and
psychology of religion. He joined the Psychology and Religion
Research Group as a research assistant in 2009.
Research Interests
Geoff remains interested in Schleiermacher’s dogmatic
theology, and in the conceptions of religious feeling developed by
Schleiermacher, Wesley, Newman and others. He is also interested in
theological and psychological accounts of “everyday” emotions like
fear, joy and anger. If a theological account of emotion is to be
credible in the modern world, it cannot ignore recent research on
affect, and Geoff is working to identify the theological
ramifications of the latest psychological studies. But he is also
concerned to show how psychological studies of emotion might be
enhanced with insights drawn from older theological accounts of the
passions.
