Robert Phillips
Department Chair of the Department of Anthropology and Associate Professor of Anthropology
- Ph.D., Anthropology, University of California, Irvine
- M.A., Religious Studies, University of Pittsburgh
- B.S. Biological Sciences, University of Pittsburgh
Research Interests: Robert Phillips is a cultural anthropologist whose main body of research has explored the effects of new and emerging technologies, particularly the Internet, on national and religious belonging. He has employed digital anthropological methods in examining national subjectivity among gay-identified men in Singapore and religious subjectivity among observant Jewish men in the United States and Israel. Both of these projects have looked at how interactions on the Internet can be employed to help reconcile conflicts between individuals’ sexuality and other aspects of their lives. The current iteration of this research focuses on notions of “care,” and explores how small Jewish communities, gay-identified individuals, and other minorities groups have embraced psychedelic medicine in an attempt to create more satisfying lives.
Courses I teach
- ANTH 101: Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
- ANTH 316: History of Method and Theory in Anthropology
- ANTH 409: Digital Anthropology
- ANTH 459: Ethnographic Methods
Research and Publications
- 2021 (with Emma Cieslik) “You’re My First Jew:” University Student and Professor Experiences of Judaism in a Small Indiana City. Contemporary Jewry. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12397-021-09389-9.
- 2021 “A Corpus-Assisted Analysis of the Discursive Construction of LGBT Singaporeans in Media Coverage of Pink Dot.” Journal of Language and Sexuality, 10(2): 180-201. https://doi.org/10.1075/jls.20010.phi
- 2020 Virtual Activism: Sexuality, the Internet, and a Social Movement in Singapore. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.