Prof John Mack
| Job Title | Contact | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Professor of World Art Studies |
John dot Mack at uea dot ac dot uk
Tel: 2463/2817 |
Sainsbury Centre 0.16 |
Biography
Professor Mack is an internationally-recognised authority on the arts and cultures of Africa, where his research has focused on Congo, southern Sudan, Kenya, Madagascar and Zanzibar. He has also travelled and researched in parts of West Africa. At UEA he is Professor of World Art Studies, in which capacity he has published extensively on more thematic subjects, taking a broadly anthropological approach to art, material culture and archaeology. Recent books have discussed questions of memory and art, and the process of miniaturisation. Currently Head of the School, Professor Mack is finalising a volume on representations of the experience of the sea, completing (with colleagues in the UK and eastern Africa) a study of the impact of Christianity and Islam in northern Kenya and participating in a major UEA study of basketry, his contribution focusing on the Congo Basin. The subjects are linked through an interest in the artistic and material engagement with different environments: the sea, semi-desert and tropical forest.
Career
Before coming to UEA in 2004 Professor Mack was Keeper of the British Museum’s Department of Ethnography (Museum of Mankind), which he joined in 1976, and was also Senior Keeper of the British Museum as a whole. Although his responsibilities involved coordinating research and curatorial activities across a wide field, his specialism has been in Africa and the western Indian Ocean. He remains an advisor for the British Museum’s International African Programmes and is President of the British Institute in Eastern Africa (sponsored by the British Academy). He has overseen a number of major exhibitions and gallery installations, including ‘Museum of the Mind, Art and Memory in World Cultures’ (British Museum, 2003) and The Sainsbury Africa Galleries, which opened at the British Museum in 2001.
Academic Background
B.A. Social Anthropology; University of Sussex (1971)
M.A. History of Ideas; University of Sussex (1972)
D.Phil, Anthropology; Oxford University (1975)
Website
Key Research Interests
African art and cultures
Museums, memory, cultural heritage
Art in a cross-cultural context
Art and the environment
Current Research Projects
Inhabiting the Sea: A book on the experience of ‘salt-water’ peoples and how it is represented from a maritime rather a terrestrial perspective. The study looks to reconfigure social, symbolic, and economic constructions of the human engagement with the sea, drawing on a range of maritime cultures to reassess eurocentric perspectives.
(Supported by the Leverhulme Trust)
Belief and belonging in northern Kenya: A project examining the impact of Christianity and Islam in the area of Marsabit and its differential effects on ‘traditional’ practice, ethnicity and identity. In the process of writing up.
(Principal Investigator on a multi-institutional study supported by the AHRC)
Beyond the basket: Researching the practical and symbolic versatility of making baskets and related technologies in the Congo Basin preparatory to a co-authored book and exhibition.
(Co-investigator on a UEA-led study supported by the AHRC)
Forthcoming publications:
2011 'Shrines and Spirits in Madagascar', Anthropology and Medicine
' Baskets of Wisdom'
2012 'Naming and Visualising: Kuba pattern-making reassessed', School of Archaeology Monographs, University of Oxford
'Inhabiting the Sea', Reaktion Books
Past Research Projects and Grants
| Project Title | Start Date | End Date | Funding Body |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Land Viewed from the Sea | 1/9/2008 | 31/12/2008 | Leverhulme Trust |
| Belief and Belonging: Identity and Religion in Northern Kenya | 1/10/2007 | 31/1/2009 | Arts and Humanities Research Council |
| Art of Small things | 1/8/2004 | 31/7/2007 | British Museum |
Teaching Interests
- The comparative study of art
- Traditional’ and contemporary art of Africa
- Museum studies and cultural heritage
- Art and the construction of memory
Research supervision
Interested in supervising research students in all areas of African art and anthropology, and topics related to museums and cultural heritage.
Recent and current PhD students include:
Sarah Worden: Hausa Robes of Honour (2007)
Lisa Binder: Contemporary Africa Art (2009)
Fiona Sheales: Early 19th century Ghana
Laura de Becker: Representations of genocide in Rwanda
Sokratis Kioussis: Natural history in Greek antiquity and contemporary museums
Examples of modules taught
- Concealing and Revealing: Ancestors, Spirits and Kings
- The Practice of Cultural Heritage
- Adjacencies: Comparative approaches to art
- African Art and Archaeology
Article
Mack, John (2007) The Land Viewed from the Sea. Azania, 62. pp. 1-14.
Mack, John (2002) "Exhibiting Cultures" Revisited: Translation and Representation. FOLK: Journal of the Danish Ethnographic Society, 43. pp. 195-209.
Book Section
Mack, John (2009) The Object of Memory. In: Preserving the cultural heritage of Africa. Crisis or Renaissance? James Curry Boydell and Brewer. ISBN 9781868885398
Mack, John (2004) El Arte de Benin. In: Africa. La Figura Imaginada. Fundacio la Caxia, Barcelona, pp. 26-36. ISBN 8476648510
Mack, John (2003) "Ethnography" in the Enlightenment. In: Enlightening the British: Knowledge, discovery & the museum in the Eighteenth Century. British Museum Press, pp. 114-118. ISBN 071415010X
Mack, John (2003) Medicine and Anthropology in Wellcome's Collection. In: Medicine Man, the Forgotten Museum of Henry Wellcome. British Museum Press, pp. 213-233. ISBN 0714127949
Book
Mack, John (2008) Preserving the Cultural Heritage of Africa: Crisis or Renaissance? James Currey Publications, p. 160. ISBN 0852559828
Mack, John (2007) The Art of Small Things. British Museum Press, p. 219. ISBN 9780714150468
Mack, John (2003) Museum of the Mind, Art and Memory in World Cultures. British Museum Press, p. 160. ISBN 0714126373
Mack, John (2001) Africa: Arts and Cultures. British Museum Press, p. 224. ISBN 0714125482
Professional Activities
- Fellow of the British Academy (2009)
- President of the British Institute in Eastern Africa (since 2005)
- Member of the British Museum Research Board (since 2006)
- Member of the Board of Visitors, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford (since 1999)
- Trustee, Horniman Museum (since 1998)
- Member of the Advisory Board, National Art Collections Fund (since 1994)
- Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute
- Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London
- Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts
- Fellow of the Saltzburg Global Seminar
Key Responsibilities
Head of School, January 2009 - present
