Description:

Matthew Engelke is a Professor in the Department of Anthropology. He also co-ordinates the School’s Programme for the Study of Religion and Non-Religion. Prof Engelke was educated at the universities of Chicago and Virginia. He joined LSE in 2002.

Prof Engelke’s research focuses in the broadest sense on the connections between religion and culture, primarily in Africa and Britain. He has conducted in-depth fieldwork on an African Church in Zimbabwe, evangelical Christians in England, and, most recently, secular humanists in Britain. Throughout this work, he has examined such issues as the importance of textual authority within religious communities; the dynamics of conversion and belief; religion and material culture; religion and media; the role of religion in public life; ritual; and conceptions of the secular and humanism. In addition to these fieldwork-based projects, Prof Engelke has also conducted research in the history of anthropology. His research has been funded by, among other sources, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Fulbright-Hays Commission, the British Academy, the Economic and Social Research Council, and the LSE’s Annual Fund.

Co-sponsored by Global Politics and Religion and the Religious Studies Department