Professor, Religious Studies 

University Hall (UH) 130 

badone@mcmaster.ca 

Tel: (905) 525-9140, ext. 23395 

Through her work on the anthropology of Catholicism and popular faith in France, primarily in Brittany but also in the Camargue region, Ellen Badone has addressed the interplay between history, heritage and memory in the construction of local and regional identity.  Her work on pilgrimage in Brittany shows how religious heritage sites (shrines) continue to perform sacred – although not necessarily Roman Catholic – roles as sites anchoring collective memory and materializing community persistence through time.

Professor 

Chester New Hall, Room 507 

stringy@mcmaster.ca 

Tel: (905) 525-9140, ext. 23910 

Tristan Carter has been involved in ‘public archaeology’ since the 1980s, through taught classes, guest lectures, plus site and museum tours as means of engaging non-academic audiences. Since he initiated his own fieldwork projects at Stelida (Greece), and Freston (UK), this relationship has been far more dialogical, recognizing the many stakeholder communities whose interests coalesce at these ‘sites’. These projects thus involve research questions and products – such as exhibitions – that stem from local interests and concerns, resulting in a more ethically aware and inclusive cultural heritage.

Professor 

Chester New Hall (CNH), Room 532 

colaruss@mcmaster.ca 

Tel: (905) 525-9140, ext. 23902 

I work on comparative linguistics and comparative mythology. By following strict techniques and protocols I try to reconstruct lost “proto-Languages” and proto-myths, that is dead belief systems and their mode of expression. With care I’m now able to reconstruct aspects of lost cultures of Eurasia back to roughly 7,000 BPE. Most recently my work has received support from archaeology and genetics.

Assistant Professor 

CNH 530 

iqbalb3@mcmaster.ca 

Tel: (905) 525-9140, ext. 24283 

A key theme of my research is the difficult question of inheritance, that is, the disclosure and inhabitation of forms of life under postcolonial terms of recognition. I thus approach the topics of heritage, history, and memory with a view to the ambivalence of loss, the work of repair, and the life of tradition. In the sites of my ethnographic fieldwork, with Syrian refugees and aid workers in Jordan and Canada, these aspects are articulated through the complex theological figure of “tribulation” whose temporal variations cannot be adequately analyzed through recourse to secular historicism.

Associate Professor / Undergraduate Chair 

Chester New Hall, Room 531 

mcgarry@mcmaster.ca 

Tel: (905) 525-9140, ext. 23901 

Karen McGarry is a socio-cultural anthropologist with an interest in the ways in which mediated representations of mass spectacles (like large sporting events) align with nostalgia for an imagined and idealized national history. Some of her fieldwork, for example, has focused upon an analysis of how high performance Canadian figure skating has functioned to simultaneously remember and exclude particular bodies and identities surrounding class, race, sexuality and gender, among others. She also explores how the global circulation and positive international reception of various forms of material culture (like costumes or awards) within the context of mass media, social media, or museum exhibits cultivates a sense of nationalism. Karen has recently begun a project on scuba diving tourism, national heritage and narratives of piracy in St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Associate Professor 

Chester New Hall, Room 534 

smorell@mcmaster.ca 

Tel: (905) 525-9140, ext. 23909 

Shanti Morell-Hart studies the interplay between tangible and intangible heritage, and examines the intersections between archaeology, history, cuisine and patrimony. Her research tracks how archaeological studies are mobilized in contemporary trade policies, cultural resilience, sustainability efforts, haute cuisine, and health initiatives.  She is completing a book project titled Gastronomic Heritage: Stakes in Antiquity.

(she/her); Associate Professor; Associate Dean Academic, Faculty of Social Sciences; Associate Editor, American Journal of Biological Anthropology 

Chester New Hall, Room 514 

prowset@mcmaster.ca 

Tel: (905) 525-9140, ext. 20191 (ADA Office) 

My research explores diet, health and mobility in past populations, using palaeopathological and isotopic analyses of human bones and teeth. My approach is interdisciplinary, combining skeletal, isotopic, and archaeological evidence embedded within the historical and archaeological context of the people I study.  

My ongoing research project is a bioarchaeological investigation of a rural Roman cemetery on an Imperial estate at Vagnari, south Italy.

Professor | Director/Graduate Advisor of IGHC 

L.R. Wilson Hall, Room 2020 

rethman@mcmaster.ca 

Tel: (905) 525-9140, ext. 26259 

Petra Rethmann’s interests lie at the intersection of cultural anthropology, politics, history, philosophy and art. In drawing on a number of ethnographic/experimental methodologies and theoretical approaches, she explores – for example – the ways in which experiences of historical grievances and injuries shape political imaginations. Through SSHRC-funded research she concretely examines this issue through the global entanglements of Germany, Russia and Kazakhstan. In regards to her interests in philosophy and art, Petra is very interested in understanding how the former both act in and expand our understanding of the world. In this regard, she is currently working on two book-length projects, asking about art as a form of becoming and as a putative source of political and economic redemption in especially post-industrial societies. Petra is also deeply invested in questions of writing. She teaches seminars and classes on the interconnection between politics, activism, futurity and hope; history and memory; and ethnographic and other forms of writing, Petra has provided logistic and research support for a number of politically progressive movements and NGOs, and considers ethics and commitment as integral to the research process and to working towards a better world.

Associate Professor / Graduate Chair 

Chester New Hall, Room 509 

roddick@mcmaster.ca 

Tel: (905) 525-9140, ext. 23913 

Andy Roddick’s focus on the itineraries of Andean objects, as they travel in the deep past and through present social and political contexts, including through museums. He has used a variety of analytical techniques to juxtapose ancient and contemporary pottery, to examine their production and movement through particular communities. His work is grounded in an effort to understand Andean ontologies and landscapes, and the things that archaeologists use to define change through time, themes reflected in his undergraduate and graduate teaching.

Associate Professor 

Chester New Hall, Room 535 

yongk@mcmaster.ca 

Tel: (905) 525-9140, ext. 23907 

Kee Yong’s background is on the ethnography of the nation-state, with an emphasis on the memory literature, conflict, migration, and the legality and legitimation of the modern state. Drawing on these complementary theoretical currents, Kee has done research on communism and the sacrificed of the Chinese Hakkas in Cold and post-Cold War Sarawak and on the recurring conflict in Muslim majority provinces in Thailand’s far south. His research on Sarawak and Thailand’s far south focuses on the relationship between the construction of minorities – and thus majority – and on issues on violence, history, memory, forgetting, silencing, economics, and political formations. Kee Yong is currently working on a collaborative project, one that seeks to understand analytically the potential geopolitical and economic realignment under China’s Belt and Road Initiatives (BRI) across the World Of Ocean Shores, referring here to Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean that encompasses parts of East Africa and the Middle East.