Robert Phillips

Department Chair of the Department of Anthropology and Associate Professor of Anthropology

Phone:765-285-4845

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Room:BB 303

• 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 who lectures on digital methods, ethnographic methods, and the anthropology of religion. Much of his empirical research has been conducted in India, Israel, and Singapore, focusing on the intersection of religion, technology, and cultural change. He has published in the Journal of Language and Sexuality, the International Journal of Religion and Spirituality in Society, and Contemporary Jewry. Currently, he is working on two projects that use methods from linguistic anthropology. The first examines antisemitism among the progressive American left through a corpus linguistics/critical discourse analysis of online news comments. The second, The Psychedelic Narratives Project, is a multi-year project looking at individuals’ naturalistic (non-clinical) use of psychedelic plants and fungi in the pursuit of personal healing. He also serves as co-chair of the Zeigler Jewish Studies Program.

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

• 2024 “A Corpus-Assisted Analysis of the Discursive Construction of LGBTQ Muslims and Jews in the UK Media.” Queer Jews, Queer Muslims: Race, Religion, and Representation. Adi Saleem, ed. Wayne State University Press.
• 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.