Joel Robbins is the Sigrid Rausing Professor of Social Anthropology and Fellow of Trinity College at the University of Cambridge. He is also the Deputy Head of Department and REF Coordinator of Social Anthropology and the Director of the Max Planck – Cambridge Centre for Ethics, Economy and Social Change. He was previously employed at the University of California, San Diego (1998–2013), and at Reed College (1996–1998), and was awarded his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia in 1998.
He has published works on the anthropology of Papua New Guinea, anthropological theory, the anthropology of Christianity, religious change, the anthropology of ethics and morals, and the anthropology of value. His publications include Becoming Sinners: Christianity and Moral Torment in a Papua New Guinea Society (University of California Press, 2004), awarded the J. I. Staley prize by the School for Advanced Research in 2011, Keeping God’s Distance: Sacrifice, Possession and the Problem of Religious Mediation (American Ethnologist, 2017), and the co-edited volume, Ritual Intimacy-Ritual Publicity: Engaging with Plurality (with J. Sumiala; Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society, 2017).
He is currently the series editor for the University of California Press “Anthropology of Christianity” book series, and has also served as a co-editor for the journal Anthropological Theory.
