Dr Alan Thorold
Contact
E: athorold@unimelb.edu.au
T: 03 8344 8689
Office: Room 242, Old Arts
Academic profile
BA (Cape Town) PhD (Cantab.)
Alan Thorold studied anthropology and psychology at the University of Cape Town and did a PhD in social anthropology at Cambridge. The fieldwork for his doctorate was done with the Yao Muslims in southern Malawi and this has remained a central area of research and publication. Alan has also published on African writing systems, the ethnography of informal settlements and fundamentalism, and was recently involved in making a film about Islam in Malawi. He has taught anthropology and development studies at various universities in South Africa and Australia.
Teaching
- 121-110 Famine in the Modern World;
- 121-436 Geopolitics of Peace and Development;
- 121-460 Field Methods for Development.
Publications
- 2005 'The fundamentalist challenge, or rehinging the pendulum' (guest editorial) Anthropology Today 21(4).
- 2002 'The Yao' in Melvin Ember and Carol Ember (eds.) Encyclopedia of World Cultures Supplement, New York: Macmillan.
- 2001 'Writing systems in Africa' in Douglas Killam and Ruth Rowe (eds.) The Companion to African Literatures, Oxford: James Currey.
- 2001 'Sufi and sukuti in southern Malawi' in David Bone (ed.) Malawi's Muslims: Historical Perspectives, Blantyre: CLAIM.
- 2000 'Regionalism, Tribalism and Multi-Party Democracy: the case South African Journal of International Affairs7(2).
- 2000 'Le rituel soufi et la construction de l'identite musulmane yao' in Veronique Faure (ed.) Dynamiques religieuses en Afrique australe, Paris: Karthala.