Elena Dugan

“The most fascinating part of teaching religion and philosophy is that my students and I get to look directly at topics that humans have long marked as confusing or unknown—the afterlife, human nature, evil, love, justice—and jump right in to conversations that have been going for millenia.”

I have been fascinated by religion for over a decade, especially the long and tumultuous histories of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. I received my BA in Religion and Arabic from McGill University, my MSc in Biblical Studies from the University of Edinburgh, and my PhD from Princeton University in Religion. As a researcher, at Princeton University, I was a John D. Rockefeller Jr. fellow, a Harold W. Dodds fellow, and a postdoctoral associate with the Department of Religion. But teaching has been my passion from a young age, and I came to Andover because its classrooms are filled with students who are also friends, neighbors, and teammates. I deeply value this environment. The nature of studying religion and philosophy is often personal, disarming, strange, and exciting. Andover classrooms are so special because they draw from a strong, friendly community, and allow us to explore in good company. There is nothing so wonderful, to me, as a friendly class of students getting excited about just how differently people can see the world, and trying on (however temporarily or permanently) new lenses themselves.