Pictorial arts of China - especially painting and calligraphy; East Asian narrative art; canons, collecting and connoisseurship; Chinese art and modernity
Architecture, sculpture and painting in South Asia, especially in southern India; pilgrimage, sacred geography; material religion; histories of archaeology, conservation and collecting.
Southeast Asian arts, aesthetics, literatures and cultural histories, with a focus on Cambodia, from the Angkorian to the post-Angkorian to the contemporary; Theravadin Buddhist arts, literatures and ritual; cultural heritage; sexual difference; deconstruction; memory and textuality.
Director of Recruitment, Admissions & Marketing (DRAM)
Chinese and Buddhist art in museums; history of Yuanmingyuan (or ‘Summer Palace’) collections; museology; colonialism and material culture; post-colonial critiques of museum representations; history and theory of collecting; art and anthropology.
Architecture, sculpture and painting in South Asia, especially in southern India; pilgrimage, sacred geography; material religion; histories of archaeology, conservation and collecting.
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.
African film and video (particularly their intersection); filmic mediations of African performance arts (music, dance, theatre); literary adaptation in Africa; contemporary film theory and 'World Cinema'; exile/immigration and violence in relation to African screen media; structures of film production, distribution, and exhibition in Africa; use of African languages in film
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.
Cultures of travel (especially the Cape and the Indian Ocean; Australia; Sri Lanka); archives; visual and material cultures; landscape; maritime history; South African fiction and non-fiction in English (Coetzee; Wicomb); intertextuality; auto/ biography
Ethnomusicology; musics of China and Central Asia, especially Uyghur; Silk Road narratives; cultural and heritage policy, Islamic soundscapes; gender; minority rights and identity politics
Visual and material culture of the Korean peninsula; Pre-modern Korean burial practices, particularly of the Koryŏ period (AD918-1392); Arts of the Koryŏ period, especially bronze mirrors and ceramics; 20th century collecting of Korean artefacts; Heritage and museum practices; Gender and material culture.
Researching various aspects of contemporary art practice and display within the international arena including Diasporic art, African American art in the international arena, Black British artists, politics of curating, the role of art criticism, the relationships between contemporary art, ethnography, and the western museum.
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
Pictorial arts of China - especially painting and calligraphy; East Asian narrative art; canons, collecting and connoisseurship; Chinese art and modernity
Curating, museology, and history of collections, especially in Southeast Asia and Asia more generally; debates surrounding the decolonising of museums. Buddhist and Hindu art and archaeology of Southeast Asia, especially Thailand and Laos. Indian Ocean World maritime networks and shipwrecks.
Islamic architecture and urbanism; sociological dimensions of the art and architecture of North Africa, especially Morocco; architectural and visual theory; Islamic studies.
History of African Art; Modern and contemporary art and curating in Africa, Brazil and the Caribbean, with particular focus on Haiti and Lusophone Africa; art and the Cold War in Africa; art education and cultural policy; post-colonial theory and trans-national exhibition practice.
Southeast Asian arts, aesthetics, literatures and cultural histories, with a focus on Cambodia, from the Angkorian to the post-Angkorian to the contemporary; Theravadin Buddhist arts, literatures and ritual; cultural heritage; sexual difference; deconstruction; memory and textuality.
Director of Recruitment, Admissions & Marketing (DRAM)
Chinese and Buddhist art in museums; history of Yuanmingyuan (or ‘Summer Palace’) collections; museology; colonialism and material culture; post-colonial critiques of museum representations; history and theory of collecting; art and anthropology.
Music of South Asia; Hindustani classical music; historical ethnomusicology; cultural history; historical musicology and musical aesthetics; lyric, song, and musical literature; music and gender; music and religion; history of emotions
Arts and visual cultures of China and the Sinophone world; cinematic arts; animation and digital media; art theory; medium and materiality; cultural flows.
South Sudan and East Africa; Murle cultural heritage; youth visual, musical and performative culture; body art, scarification and identity; ethnic identity politics; conflict, politics of humanitarian aid and development.
Cultures of travel (especially the Cape and the Indian Ocean; Australia; Sri Lanka); archives; visual and material cultures; landscape; maritime history; South African fiction and non-fiction in English (Coetzee; Wicomb); intertextuality; auto/ biography
Reader in the History of South Asian Art & Archaeology
Architecture, sculpture and painting in South Asia, especially in southern India; pilgrimage, sacred geography; material religion; histories of archaeology, conservation and collecting.
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.
Visual and material culture of the Korean peninsula; Pre-modern Korean burial practices, particularly of the Koryŏ period (AD918-1392); Arts of the Koryŏ period, especially bronze mirrors and ceramics; 20th century collecting of Korean artefacts; Heritage and museum practices; Gender and material culture.
Researching various aspects of contemporary art practice and display within the international arena including Diasporic art, African American art in the international arena, Black British artists, politics of curating, the role of art criticism, the relationships between contemporary art, ethnography, and the western museum.
Percival David Professor of the History of Art, Head of Department
Pictorial arts of China - especially painting and calligraphy; East Asian narrative art; canons, collecting and connoisseurship; Chinese art and modernity
Pratapaditya Pal Senior Lecturer in Curating and Museology of Asian Art
Curating, museology, and history of collections, especially in Southeast Asia and Asia more generally; debates surrounding the decolonising of museums. Buddhist and Hindu art and archaeology of Southeast Asia, especially Thailand and Laos. Indian Ocean World maritime networks and shipwrecks.
Senior Lecturer in the History of Architecture & Archaeology of the Islamic Middle East
Islamic architecture and urbanism; sociological dimensions of the art and architecture of North Africa, especially Morocco; architectural and visual theory; Islamic studies.
History of African Art; Modern and contemporary art and curating in Africa, Brazil and the Caribbean, with particular focus on Haiti and Lusophone Africa; art and the Cold War in Africa; art education and cultural policy; post-colonial theory and trans-national exhibition practice.
Southeast Asian arts, aesthetics, literatures and cultural histories, with a focus on Cambodia, from the Angkorian to the post-Angkorian to the contemporary; Theravadin Buddhist arts, literatures and ritual; cultural heritage; sexual difference; deconstruction; memory and textuality.
Chinese and Buddhist art in museums; history of Yuanmingyuan (or ‘Summer Palace’) collections; museology; colonialism and material culture; post-colonial critiques of museum representations; history and theory of collecting; art and anthropology.
Lecturer in the Arts and Visual Cultures of Modern China
Arts and visual cultures of China and the Sinophone world; cinematic arts; animation and digital media; art theory; medium and materiality; cultural flows.
He is now focusing on the evidence in Indochina for the influence of tantric or esoteric Buddhism, developed in the great monasteries of the Ganges valley and diffused and developed in different ways through much of Asia.
Founder and Director Emerita of the Postgraduate Diploma in Asian Art
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.
Arts of Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Cambodia cultural landscape; pre- and proto-historic Myanmar, Pyu and Mon culture; visual culture, social memory and sacred landscape
Professorial Research Associate & Senior Teaching Fellow
State formation; agricultural transition; urbanisation; landscape archaeology; geoarchaeology, tectonic archaeology; East Asian archaeology especially Japanese archaeology and prehistory/protohistory
History of Art & Architecture of the Muslim World, focusing on Mughal South Asia; Artistic, historic and cultural links between 17th Century Muslim South Asia and Iran, Anatolia and Europe; urbanism in Mughal South Asia.
Islamic art history, aesthetics and visual culture. Phenomenology of artworks, cognitive processes, and issues of conceptualisation of visual forms in Islam. Relation between theory and practice in Islamic artistic creation.
Modern and contemporary arts of Africa, including its histories of photography; visual and material cultures of West Africa, and their linkages to diasporic arts past and present; the arts of the Benin kingdom, masquerade, textiles and other art forms in southern Nigeria, as well as a particular focus on contemporary arts in Nigeria.
African film and video (particularly their intersection); filmic mediations of African performance arts (music, dance, theatre); literary adaptation in Africa; contemporary film theory and 'World Cinema'; exile/immigration and violence in relation to African screen media; structures of film production, distribution, and exhibition in Africa; use of African languages in film
Lecturer in the Arts and Visual Cultures of Modern China
Arts and visual cultures of China and the Sinophone world; cinematic arts; animation and digital media; art theory; medium and materiality; cultural flows.
South Asia with a focus on India; transnational news spheres; Development discourses and its articulation in mainstream and alternate news forums; environmental politics.
Japanese literature, drama and thought, primarily of the Tokugawa period, with particular interest in Bunraku and Kabuki theatre and the plays of Chikamatsu
Modern Thai Cultural Studies, Cinema and Literature; gender studies with reference to Thailand; literary criticism and South East Asian Literatures in a comparative context; Western film set in South East Asia
Contemporary Japanese culture, with particular interest in Japanese media and popular culture, representations of 'Otherness', social phenomena and war memory.
China: Hong Kong and Guangdong Province (PRC) Chinese media, newspapers, television, journalism, popular culture, Internet and telecommunications, theatre, anthropological knowledge, practice and performance
Middle East, especially Palestine, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon, international political communication; media and conflict; critical global media studies; activism and media; social movements; memory studies and oral history; diasporas and ethnic minorities.
Modern Indonesian cinema and literature; queer studies and sexuality in Indonesia; representation of genders and sexuality in Southeast Asian film and literatures; traditional Malay literature
Classical and modern Arabic literature and culture, with emphasis on narrative and storytelling, comparative narratology and critical theory, and gendered thinking and discourse.
Using Film for Social Change; Transnational Feminist Filmmaking; Sickle Cell Disease in Nigeria; Sexual and Reproductive Health in Nigeria; Theory and Creative Practice of Making Documentary and Narrative Feature Films in Nigeria.
Film, Media and Literature – currently focusing on Korean Film and Media: The Cold War culture, media and gender (Korea/Germany), shamanism in visual media, Korean cinema and history
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.
Ethnomusicology; musics of China and Central Asia, especially Uyghur; Silk Road narratives; cultural and heritage policy, Islamic soundscapes; gender; minority rights and identity politics
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
Music of the Islamic Middle East and Central Asia; Persian art music; classical music of the Arab Mashriq; music analysis: performance theory and practice-based research; rhythm and temporality; historical ethnomusicology; music revival.
Music of South Asia; Hindustani classical music; historical ethnomusicology; cultural history; historical musicology and musical aesthetics; lyric, song, and musical literature; music and gender; music and religion; history of emotions
Ethnomusicology; anthropology; Korean music; music traditions in Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Thailand, and Siberia; studies of religion; composition; education; shamanism; early keyboard instruments, players and restorers
Kadialy Kouyate comes from a very large African musical family of dialis, who are well known in Mandinka history. Since 2005 he has been teaching the Kora to undergraduate and postgraduate students at SOAS.
Sanju Sahai represents the distinguished lineage of tabla players and teachers from Banaras. He performs internationally as a soloist and in a variety of ensembles, and has been teaching tabla at SOAS for many years.
Migration, gender, musical composition, performance, history and politics. The oud. 19th to 21st-century Palestine, Hungary, and African migration to Europe.
Ethnomusicology; music of East Asia especially Japan; Japanese folk and theatre music; music and linguistics; Indonesian gamelan and Javanese street music
