Michael Allen

 

Michael Allen was born in Dublin, lreland, in 1928. He received his B.A.
(Hons) in Mental and Moral Science from Trinity College, Dublin in 1950 and his Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from the Australian National University in 1965. He was appointed to a lectureship in Anthropology at Sydney University in 1964 and retired as Professor in 1993. In 1978 he was an Overseas Fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge; in 1982 Visiting Professor at the University of California, San Diego; in 1990 Visiting Professor at St. Patrick's College, Maynooth (Dublin); and in 1994/5 Visiting Professor at James Cook University (Townsville). ln addition to his extensive fieldwork on Newar society and religion, conducted mainly between 1966 and 1978, Professor Allen has also carried out anthropological research in Vanuatu (1958-82) and in lreland (1988-96). He established an international reputation with his first book, Male Cults and Secret lnitiations in Melanesia (1967). Other important publications include The Cult of Kumari: Virgin Worship in Nepal (1996), Ritual, Power and Gender: Explorations in the Ethnography of Vanuatu, Nepal and Ireland (2000) and his edited volumes Vanuatu: Politics, Economics and Politics in lsland Melanesia (1981), Women in lndia and Nepal (1982, with S.N. Mukherjee), Anthropology of Nepal: Peoples, Problems and Processes (1994) and The Dasakarma Vidhi: Fundamental Customs of Ten Rites of Passage Amongst The Buddhist Newars of Nepal (2010, original text by Pandit Asha Kaji Vajracarya). Professor Allen was Editor of The Australian Journal of Anthropology from 1992 to 2005. He was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia in 1984. He is currently an Honorary Professor of Anthropology at the University of Sydney.