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School of Arts Staff

Head of School

Professor Timon Screech

Somnath Batabyal
Somnath Batabyal

South Asia with a focus on India; transnational news spheres with a special focus on India; Development discourses in India and its articulation in mainstream and alternate news forums; environmental politics.

  • Tel: 020 7898 4415
  • Email: sb127@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 570
  • Office Hours: Wednesdays 3-5pm
Doris Behrens-Abouseif
Doris Abouseif

Architecture of Cairo, the art and archaeology of Turkey, Iran and the Near East

  • Tel: 020 7898 4455
  • Email: da30@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: B303
  • Office Hours: Wednesdays 5-6pm
Crispin Branfoot
Crispin Branfoot Architecture, sculpture and painting in South Asia, especially in southern India; pilgrimage and sacred geography; material religion; colonialism and material culture.
Anna Contadini
Anna Contadini Arab and early Persian painting and the arts of the Islamic book in general, including the production of manuscripts of the Qur'an; art and material culture of the Islamic world; Fatimid art and architecture; the arts of Islamic Spain; artistic contacts between the Islamic World and Europe; aspects of contemporary Islamic art.
  • Tel: 020 7898 4458
  • Email: ac24@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: B306
  • Office Hours: All Year (during term time) - Thursdays 2-3pm
Lucy Durán
Lucy Durán Music in the Mande world; Music of Mali, Guinea, Guinea Bissau; gender and music in West Africa; popular musics of Atlantic Africa; childhood music learning in West Africa; Cuban music, especially son and rumba; radio as a medium; and the world music industry.
  • Tel: 020 7898 4374
  • Email: ld@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 596
  • Office Hours: Wednesdays 3-5pm
Heather Elgood
Hettie Elgood Dr Heather Elgood is the Course Director of the Diploma in Asian Art. She is a specialist in Persian, Jain, Sultanate and Mughal manuscript painting as well as the ritual arts of Hinduism.
  • Tel: 020 7898 4445
  • Email: he2@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: B310
  • Office Hours: Tuesdays 2-5pm or by email appointment
Charles Gore
Charlie Gore Visual culture of West Africa and the Caribbean
  • Tel: 020 7898 4443
  • Email: cg2@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: B305
  • On Sabbatical:Sabbatical Term 2 2012-13
Nick Gray
Nick Gray

Music of South East Asia, Indonesia, Bali, especially music for the Balinese shadowplay, composition, improvisation, analysis, music and religion

  • Tel: 020 7898 4686
  • Email: ng18@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 505
  • Office Hours: Wednesdays 11am-1pm
Rachel Harris
Rachel Harris Ethnomusicology; musics of China and Central Asia, especially Uyghur; recorded music; music and ritual, music, identity and politics
  • Tel: 020 7898 4513
  • Email: rh@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 513
  • On Sabbatical:Research Leave 2012-13
Charlotte Horlyck
Charlotte Horlyck

Art, archaeology of Korea; funerary customs; architecture, spatiality in pre-modern Korea; theories in the study of visual and material culture.

  • Tel: 020 7898 4704
  • Email: ch10@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: B403
  • Office Hours: Thursdays 5-6pm (during term time)
Keith Howard
Keith Howard Keith Howard is an ethnomusicologist, musicologist and anthropologist. He is particularly interested in how people use and talk about music, and his work explores music and religion, composition, education, preservation and sustainability, commodification and commercialisation, traditions, and musical futures.

He is the author or editor of 16 books and more than 100 articles. He founded the SOASIS CD and DVD label and was founder and licensee of OpenAir Radio. He writes primarily about the music and culture of Korea, though he has also researched and published on the music of Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Siberia, Thailand, and Siberia.
  • Tel: 020 7898 4687
  • Email: kh@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 515
  • Office Hours: Tuesdays 11am-12pm, Fridays 2-3pm
Angela Impey
Angela Impey Music of southern Africa and the African Horn (Sudan); advocacy ethnomusicology; sound/music, memory and place; forced migration, cultural mapping and borderland identities; human rights and development.
  • Tel: 020 7898 4433
  • Email: ai6@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 518
  • Office Hours: Term 2 - Wednesdays 3-5pm
Jaeho Kang
Jaeho Kang

Critical Theory; Media Theory; East Asian Media and Cultural Studies; Media Spectacle and Uran Space in East Asian Cities; Screen Culture in Korea; New Media and Democracy in Korea; Global Sports Events (the Olympics and the World Cup)

  • Tel: 020 7898 4585
  • Email: jk71@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 510
  • Office Hours: Term 2 - Thursdays 5-7pm
Geoffrey King
Geoffrey King Islamic art and archaeology in Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, Yemen, UAE and Oman; late Antiquity, Umayyads, Abbasids, Ayyubids and Mamluks
  • Tel: 020 7898 4447
  • Email: gk3@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: B304
  • Office Hours: Wednesday, 13.30-14.30
Dina Matar
Dina Matar: Centre for Media and Film Studies

Middle East, especially the Arab world; international political communication; Arab cultural politics; Arab cultural studies; memory studies and oral history; Islamist  movements; social movements and media; diasporas; ethnic minorities; transnational movements and communications.

  • Tel: 0207 898 4696
  • Email: dm27@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 575
  • Office Hours: Mondays 2-4pm
Shane McCausland
Shane McCausland

Pictorial arts of China - especially painting and calligraphy; East Asian narrative art; canons, collecting and connoisseurship; Chinese art and modernity

  • Tel: 020 7898 4705
  • Email: sm80@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: B402
  • On Sabbatical:October 2012-May 2013
Elizabeth Moore
Elizabeth Moore Arts of Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Cambodia cultural landscape; pre- and proto-historic Myanmar, Pyu and Mon culture; visual culture, social memory and sacred landscape
  • Tel: 020 7898 4452
  • Email: em4@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: B408
  • Office Hours: Mondays 4-5pm
Lukas Nickel
Lukas Nikel History of Art and Archaeology of China and the Silk Road, Chinese culture of the Bronze Age and the Han to Tang period; early Buddhist art; art and technology in China, Chinese heritage, comparative art history
  • Tel: 020 7898 4454
  • Email: ln2@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: B407
  • Office Hours: Thursday 4-5 (during term time)
Stacey Pierson
Stacey Pierson

History and production of Chinese ceramics; history and theory of collecting; Museum Studies.

  • Tel: 020 7898 4441
  • Email: sp17@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: B308
  • Office Hours: Term 2 - Tuesdays 3:30-5pm
Timon Screech
Timon Screech History of Japanese art; Edo painting; contacts between Japan and Europe in the 18th century; history of science in Japan; the theory of art history
  • Tel: 020 7898 4453
  • Email: ts8@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: B301
  • Office Hours: All Year - Tuesdays 3-4pm (during term time)
Annabelle Sreberny
Anabelle Sreberny: Centre for Media and Film Studies

Middle East, especially Iran; gender and democratization; diasporic cultures; ‘small media’ and political change.

  • Tel: +44 (0)20 7898 4422
  • Email: as98@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 587
  • Office Hours: Mondays 1-2pm or by email appointment
Tania Tribe
Tania Tribe Painting in Africa and the Americas; theory of art with special reference to Northeastern Africa
  • Tel: 020 7898 4462
  • Email: tt10@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: B406
  • Office Hours: Thursdays 3-4 pm
D Richard Widdess
Richard Widdess North Indian art-music; history of music in South Asia; Newar music; music theory and analysis
  • Tel: 020 7898 4685
  • Email: rw4@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 507
  • Office Hours: Mondays 5:30-6:30pm / Thursdays 5-6pm
Abigail Wood
Abigail Wood Jewish Music, especially contemporary Yiddish song and klezmer; the sounds of urban Jerusalem; music among minority and immigrant communities in Israel; music and religion; urban and internet-based fieldwork.
  • Tel: 020 7898 4243
  • Email: aw48@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 512
  • Office Hours: On leave 2011-2013
Owen Wright
Owen Wright Music of the Islamic Middle East; historical musicology
  • Tel: 020 7898 4334
  • Email: ow@soas.ac.uk
  • Room: 503
  • Office Hours: Tuesdays 11am-1pm