Professor Dr. Joel Robbins

Biography

Joel Robbins is an anthropologist of religion, ethics, and cultural change whose research works to stimulate thinking about the role of values in anthropological theory. His ethnographic fieldwork has been primarily in Urapmin, Papua New Guinea, and he is currently focusing on religious education in higher education settings. Robbins' project emphasizes the intellectual aspects of religious life, particularly regarding religious elites, and he has a longstanding interest in developing an anthropological study of Christianity alongside a comparative study of Christianity from anthropological perspectives, aiming to further dialogue between anthropology and theology. His research interests include the anthropology of religion, ritual, and the ethics of values. Robbins is presently pursuing a project called “the anthropology of good,” which investigates how values structure social life and influence human emotions and desires. He teaches various courses related to anthropology and supervises several research students. He is also a Fellow at Trinity College and chairs the Social Anthropology Research Committee.

Research Interests

Courses