Professor David Gellner

David Gellner was Professor of Social Anthropology from 2008 to 2024. Before that he was for six years the University Lecturer in the Anthropology of South Asia with a Fellowship at Wolfson College. From 1994 to 2002 he was Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, and then Reader in Social Anthropology at Brunel University. His doctoral research was on the Vajrayana (Tantric) Buddhism of the Newars of the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. He has worked on issues of ethnicity, caste, religion, and politics in Nepal and north India from the 1980s onwards. Recent research has focused on changes in the position of Dalits (former Untouchables) in west-central and far-west Nepal. He has written on diverse topics, for example: the end of Hindu kingship in Nepal; concepts of evil; forms of hierarchy; and the decline of spirit possession. He has also written on elections both in Nepal and in north India. Many of his recent publications have been co-authored with Nepali or Indian colleagues.