Dr James Kapalo

Dr. James Kapaló is Senior Lecturer in the Study of Religions at University College Cork, Ireland and co-Director of the Marginalised and Endangered Worldviews Study Centre (MEWSC). He has an MA in Central and Eastern European Studies from the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES), London and a PhD in the Study of Religions from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London. A specialist on religious minorities, his work draws on anthropology, folklore and history. He works both ethnographically and with archival and museum collections to explore vernacular knowledge, folk practices and local memory as a counterpoint to national romantic narratives that tend to wash over religious, folk and local cultural meanings. He is Principal Investigator of the ERC Project Creative Agency and Religious Minorities: Hidden Galleries in the Secret Police Archives in Central and Eastern Europe (Project no. 677355). He is President of the Irish Society for the Academic Study of Religions and Managing Editor of the society’s journal JISASR.