Simon Coleman

Simon Coleman is Chancellor Jackman Professor. He came to U of T in 2010 from the University of Sussex, where he had been Head of the Department of Anthropology. Prior to that, he had been Reader in Anthropology at the University of Durham, and Deputy Dean for the Faculty of Social Sciences and Health at Durham. He obtained his undergraduate degree and PhD from the University of Cambridge.

Simon was President, Society for the Anthropology of Religion, from 2017-19. He is currently co-editor of the journal Religion and Society: Advances in Research, of the Wiley International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, and of the book series Routledge Studies in Pilgrimage, Religious Travel and Tourism. Formerly, he was editor of the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. He has carried out fieldwork in Sweden (Word of Life Ministry, Uppsala), the United Kingdom (Walsingham pilgrimage; English cathedrals; the Redeemed Christian Church of God) and Nigeria (Redeemed Christian Church of God). With Rosalind Hackett, he edited The Anthropology of Global Pentecostalism and Evangelicalism (New York University Press, 2015) and his book Powers of Pilgrimage: Religion in a World of Motion was also published by NYU Press, in 2021. With English and Nigerian colleagues he has engaged in British Academy-funded projects investigating both religious infrastructures and second-hand tire-use in Lagos.

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