Annals: Departmental reports and staff listings

University of Bristol

Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, Old Baptist College, University of Bristol, 43 Woodland Road, Bristol BS8 1UU
T: 0117 954 6060; F: 0117 954 6001; E: arch-anth(AT)bris.ac.uk
W: http://www.bris.ac.uk/archanth

Departmental report

The Department of Archaeology and Anthropology forms, as from 2006, part of the School of Arts within the Arts Faculty. At present, we teach anthropology at Masters and PhD level, as well as running a popular undergraduate single honours degree in Archaeology and Anthropology.

Staff

Permanent members of social anthropology staff are three: Fiona Bowie, David Shankland and Dimitrios Theodossopoulos. In 2007, we have also benefited greatly from temporary lecturer Jeremy Keenan, and part-time teaching from Rohit Barot, Will Guy, Judith Okely, Isabel de Sallis and Emily Warmsley. Staff interests overlap, as one would expect in an integrated department, so that anthropology in a wider sense is represented by Mhairi Gibson and Kate Robson-Brown who teach biological anthropology, and João Zilhão who teaches early humankind. Dan Hicks, our specialist in material culture left for Oxford, and was replaced by Nick Saunders, whom we are pleased to welcome to our programme. As an academic unit we cover three of the four traditional anthropological fields, with a total permanent teaching staff of 16.5 posts. Anthropologists at Bristol but not actually based in our department include Helen Lambert, Rachael Gooberman-Hill and Vieda Skultans.

Research

Africa, Latin America, south-east Europe, and the ethnography of the Islamic world are gradually emerging as regional specialisations in social anthropology, together with a focus on current changes within the discipline. To this end, the EASA conference is now past, but we look forward to ASA09 at Bristol, which has the title ‘Anthropological and Archaeological Imaginations: past, present and future’.

Teaching

Our single honours Archaeology and Anthropology degree forms the main undergraduate component of our teaching, with an MA in Social Anthropology and research supervision for PhDs the postgraduate.

Full-time teaching staff

Fiona Bowie (DPhil, Oxford; Senior Lecturer in Anthropology) Anthropology of religion, adoption, kinship and ethnography; sub-Saharan Africa

Jeremy Keenan (PhD, Exeter; Temporary Lecturer, 2007-08) Economic anthropology, indigenous rights and conflict, Nomadism and internal migration; Africa, former Soviet Union

David Shankland (PhD, Cambridge; Reader in Social Anthropology and Head of Anthropology) Islam, religion, history of social anthropology, interface between archaeology and anthropology; Turkey and south-east Europe

Dimitrios Theodossopoulos (PhD, London; Senior Lecturer in Anthropology) Environmental anthropology, stereotypes and ethnicity, culture and performance; south-east Europe, Latin America

Anthropologists elsewhere in the university

Vieda Skultans (PhD, Wales; Professor of Social Anthropology), Medical anthropology, narrative theory, social memory; Latvia, ex-Soviet Union, India

Helen Lambert (DPhil, Oxford; Senior Lecturer in Medical Anthropology) Medical anthropology, perceptions of illness and health-seeking behaviour, lay perceptions of risk; South Asia

Rachael Gooberman-Hill (PhD, Edinburgh; Research Fellow) Medical anthropology, pain, ageing, UK, kinship, work, mobility, health services, applied anthropology