Robert Phillips anthropologistphillips.rf@gmail.com
Positions Held
I am currently a sessional instructor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Manitoba. I am also research associate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh and a project consultant for Charles Drew Medical University and AIDS Project Los Angeles. Previously, I was a visiting lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at Saint Francis Xavier University. Beginning in 2009, I was [...]
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 2012 “And I am also gay”: illiberal pragmatics, post-gay logic, and LGBT activism in Singapore. Under review at Sexualities. 2012 The Cellular Generation and a New Risk Environment: Implications for Texting-Based Sexual Health Promotion Interventions among Minority Young Men Who Have Sex with Men. (second author) With Sheba George, [...]
Teaching
Currently, at the University of Manitoba, I am teaching three courses – A Feminist Anthropology of Self-Making, Anthropology of Belief Systems, and Ethnography of Southeast Asia. In the fall of 2011 I taught two sections of Introduction to Cultural Anthropology as well as a graduate seminar titled Nation, Race, and Gender. While a Visiting Instructor [...]
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 [...]