School of Arts, Department of History of Art and Archaeology, Centre for Migration and Diaspora Studies & Centre of Jaina Studies

Dr Crispin Branfoot

Key information

Roles
Department of History of Art and Archaeology Reader in the History of South Asian Art & Archaeology School of Arts Department Learning and Teaching Convenor SOAS South Asia Institute Academic Staff Centre for Migration and Diaspora Studies Member Centre of Jaina Studies Member, Centre of Jaina Studies
Qualifications
BA (Manchester), MA, PhD (London)
Building
Brunei Gallery
Office
572
Telephone number
020 7898 4450
Support hours
Term 2: Wednesdays, 3:00pm–4:00pm – or by email appointment

Biography

Dr Branfoot studied Ancient History and Archaeology at Manchester University (BA), and Art & Archaeology at SOAS (MA, PhD).

Before joining SOAS in 2006 he was a senior research fellow in South Asian Art and Architecture at De Montfort University in Leicester (2000-5) and museum assistant in the Departments of Eastern Art at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford and Oriental Antiquities at the British Museum in London.

Research interests

My research examines the arts of southern India from the fourteenth to twentieth centuries, the period encompassed by the Vijayanagara Empire, the Nayaka successor states and the establishment of colonial authority. Many of my publications have addressed the architecture, sculpture and religious culture of the Hindu temples of the Tamil region.

More recent work has addressed the histories of archaeology, photography and conservation of religious architecture in south India in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

PhD Supervision

Name Title
Panggah Ardiyansyah Heritage as accumulated meaning: Transactions, appropriation and biographies of Hindu-Buddhist materials in pre-modern Indonesia
Mr Jasdip Singh Dhillon Changes beyond the surface: Tracking the relationship between paper-making and human change in the Indus river basin region from 1000-1947 through a study of historical paper specimens
Lucy Kauser Building a Palace for Gwalior: architecture and identity in nineteenth century colonial India
Saachi Sood Mahabharata Painting in the Punjab Hills: A Study at the courts of Kangra, Guler and Garhwal

Publications

Contact Crispin