Annals: Departmental reports and staff listings
Brunel University
Department: Anthropology, School of Social Sciences, Brunel University, Uxbridge, Middlesex UB8 3PH.
Tel: 01895 274000.
Web: www.brunel.ac.uk
Departmental report
Teaching and Staff
Anthropology at Brunel remains part of the School of Social Sciences, although teaching at under-graduate level – reorganised in 2008-2009 to improve student experience – has become more independent of Psychology and Sociology, our sister disciplines within the School. Recruitment has remained steady – with an intake of around 45 students a year on our single and joint honours programmes – and our four-year sandwich degree option, allowing students to undertake two six month fieldwork placements as part of their degree, has remained a particular draw for the department.
At postgraduate level, our MSc courses in ‘Medical Anthropology’, ‘Social Anthropology of Children, Child Development and Youth’ and the more recent ‘Psychological and Psychiatric Anthropology’ continue to recruit well. A new MSc in ‘Anthropology of Education’ was launched in 2007-2008, and our MRes degree, envisaged as a stepping-stone towards a doctoral degree, has also proved popular, especially among our successful under-graduates. We have also been building up our research student numbers and have instituted a lively PhD writing seminar. Students also attend our weekly research seminar, with invited speakers attracting audiences of around 40 every week. A second weekly research seminar – organised under the auspices of the University’s new Centre for Research in International Medical Anthropology – is co-organised with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
In terms of staff, we lost both Adam Kuper, who retired at the end of the 2007-2008 academic session, and Cecil Helman, who sadly died of motor neurone disease in June 2009. Both made major contributions to the department: Adam, for bringing anthropology to Brunel in the first place and building it up, especially through his commitment to under-graduate teaching; and Cecil, for bringing his unique brand of clinically applied medical anthropology to the department, one which continued to attract impressively high numbers to our medical anthropology degree. We are currently in the process of recruiting two new members of staff to further strengthen our teaching provision.
Research and related activities
Nicolas Argenti, convenor of the Master’s degree on the Anthropology of Childhood and Youth, has just begun research leave for a project on collective memory on the Aegean island of Chios.
He was also elected to the Council of the Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI), where he keeps company with colleagues Peggy Froerer and Eric Hirsch (the RAI’s Hon. Secretary). He was also appointed Reviews Editor of the journal Africa.
Andrew Beatty's published a new book, A Shadow Falls in the Heart of Java (Faber and Faber) – one of very few non-academic books by anthropologists aimed at the serious non-fiction market. Andrew was interviewed in April on BBC World News about his book and on the recent Indonesian elections, and was also an invited speaker at literary festivals over the summers.
Peggy Froerer co-organized a successful two-day international workshop with our ESRC post-doctoral fellow, Anna Portisch in July 2009, entitled ‘Learning, Livelihoods and Social Mobility’. They are currently planning an edited volume based on papers presented at the workshop. She also serves on the RAI’s Education Committee and has become Director of C-FAR (Brunel’s Centre for Child-Focused Anthropological Research).
Eric Hirsch delivered keynote conference presentations at two separate events in the Danish Research School of Anthropology and Ethnography, Aarhus University. He continues to act as the Chair of the RAI Urgent Anthropology Committee.
Isak Niehaus attended conferences in Hardec Klalove, Bayreuth, Leipzig, and Leiden, and returned to South Africa to continue fieldwork and archival research that focuses, amongst other things, on the use of magic by football teams in his long term fieldsite of Bushbuckridge.
Melissa Parker, convenor of our Master’s degree in Medical Anthropology and director of CRIMA, received funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for the fourth consecutive year in 2008-2009, allowing her to continue research on neglected tropical diseases in Uganda and Tanzania. The grant also funded two Brunel MSc medical anthropology students to conduct anthropological research for their dissertations in Uganda, on a collaborative project with staff from Imperial College; London School of Economics; the Ministry of Health, Uganda; the National institute of Medical Research, Tanzania; and the Ministry of Health, Tanzania. Melissa also presented academic papers – based on her ongoing work in Uganda and Tanzania – at conferences and seminars at Oxford Brookes University; at the American Anthropological Association’s (AAA’s) meetings in San Francisco, and at Imperial College, London. She also gave a keynote address the Genito-Urinary Nurse Association in October 2007.
James Staples returned to South India in July 2008 to complete British Academy funded research on suicide among young men in the leprosy colony he has been visiting for the past 25 years. The research – and a two-day workshop on ethnographies of suicide he organized at Brunel in 2008 – forms the basis of contribution to an edited special journal issue he is currently in the process of editing. James also presented a paper on his ongoing research on disability in the Indian city of Hyderabad at a major conference held at Yale: Medical Anthropology at the Intersections: Celebrating 50 years of interdisciplinarity. He is also the Honorary Reviews Editor of the JRAI, and Publications Officer of the ASA.
Degrees offered in anthropology:
BSc in Anthropology
BSc in Anthropology and Sociology
BSc in Psychology and Anthropology
MSc in Anthropology of Education
MSc in Medical Anthropology
MSc in Psychological and Psychiatric Anthropology
MSc in Cross Cutural Studies of Children, Child Development and Youth
MRes in Social Anthropology
Full-time teaching staff:
Nicolas Argenti (PhD 1996, University College London; Lecturer) Performance and politics, local and national identities, children; Cameroon, Sri Lanka
Andrew Beatty (DPhil 1990 Oxford; Senior Lecturer) Religion, syncretism, kinship, children; Indonesia.
Peggy Froerer (PhD LSE 2002; Lecturer) Education and childhood; nationalism and ethnicity; illness and healing; India.
Eric Hirsch (PhD 1988 LSE; Reader, Head of Department) Historicity; landscape, power and property relations; new technologies; kinship; Papua New Guinea, Britain.
Isak Niehaus (PhD 1997; Witwatersrand; Lecturer) Witchcraft, gender, politics, HIV/AIDS, South Africa.
Melissa Parker (DPhil 1989 Oxford; Senior Lecturer) Medical anthropology, AIDS, war; Sudan, UK.
James Staples (PhD 2003 SOAS; Lecturer) medical anthropology (especially leprosy, disability, anthropology of the body and pain); begging; human rights; NGOs and development issues; India.
Part-time teaching staff:
Judith Okely (DPhil Oxford 1977; Part-time Lecturer); ethnographic research, gender, ageing, Europe.
Barbara Knorpp (Phd, Westminster 2007; Part-time Lecturer); Anthropology of Europe and Japan, urban anthropology, ethnographic film and photography, media history, modern European art and architecture, non-western art, critical theory
Other Staff:
Alexandra Ouroussoff (PhD 1988 London; Associate Research Fellow) Ethnography of political economies
Head of School of Social Sciences: Dany Nobus; Head of Anthropology: Eric Hirsch; School Administrator: Emma Perry (UG) and Veronica Johnson (PG)
Requirements for taught postgraduate degrees:
A good honours degree, normally in the social sciences, or a suitable qualification in another field, normally in medicine, child development, psychology or education.
Special Programmes:
The Centre for Child-Focused Anthropological Research (C-FAR), Director: Peggy Froerer.
The Centre for International Medical Anthropology (CRIMA), Director: Melissa Parker
Academic Year system: Terms
For prospectus and further information write to:
Anthropology, School of Social Sciences, Brunel University, Uxbridge, Middlesex UB8 3PH Emails for applications and further enquiries:
Postgraduate research: sss-resadmin(AT)brunel.ac.uk
MSc courses: Veronica.Johnson(AT)brunel.ac.uk
Undergraduate courses: Janet.Burton(AT)brunel.ac.uk