Robert Phillips anthropologistphillips.rf@gmail.com
Positions Held
I am currently a Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Manitoba and a Research Associate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh. Earlier in 2011, I was a Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at Saint Francis Xavier University. Beginning in 2009, I was a Postdoctoral Writing Fellow at the Centre for Asia Pacific Social Transformation Studies (CAPSTRANS) [...]
Current Research
I am currently working on two new projects. As an extension of my dissertation research, I have been examining the role of social media in fostering civic engagement among Singaporean youth. In May 2009 members of Singapore’s LGBT communities held the first-ever legal public rally to raise awareness of their presence within the greater society. [...]
Dissertation Research
My dissertation, Queering Online: Transnational Sexual Citizenship in Singapore, systematically investigated the Internet’s role in national and sexual identity in Singapore. In so doing, I contributed to an emerging body of anthropological work demonstrating how the Internet’s impact is culturally and historically specific. As a highly policed city-state that emphasizes technological innovation, Singapore is an ideal [...]
Publications
Peer-reviewed journal articles 2011 “Between Liberation and Assimilation: the Internet and LGBT Citizenship in Singapore.” Asian Studies Review. Forthcoming. Book chapters and other publications 2011 “The furthest things from all that (Chinese) Singaporeans consider good”: Queer Indians and the Reconfiguration of Sexual and National Identity. In Contemporary Queer Singapore. Audrey Yue and Jun Zubillaga-Pow, [...]
Teaching
In the fall of 2011, at the University of Manitoba, I will be teaching two sections of Introduction to Cultural Anthropology as well as a graduate seminar titled Nation, Race, and Gender. While a Visiting Instructor at St. Francis Xavier University, I taught Introduction to Anthropology: Physical Anthropology and Archaeology.
Education
I received my Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of California, Irvine in December 2008 and have completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Centre for Asia Pacific Social Transformation Studies (CAPSTRANS) at the University of Wollongong. My dissertation, Queering Online: Transnational Sexual Citizenship in Singapore is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in 2005-2007 and supported by [...]