Simon Coleman, FRSC

Simon Coleman came to U of T in 2010 from the University of Sussex, where he had been Head of the Department of Anthropology. Prior to that, he had been Reader in Anthropology at the University of Durham, and Deputy Dean for the Faculty of Social Sciences and Health at Durham. He obtained his undergraduate degree and PhD from the University of Cambridge.

President, Society for the Anthropology of Religion, from 2017-19, he is currently co-editor of the journal Religion and Society: Advances in Research and of the book series Routledge Studies in Pilgrimage, Religious Travel and Tourism. Formerly, he was editor of the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. He has carried out fieldwork in Sweden (Word of Life Ministry, Uppsala), the United Kingdom (Walsingham pilgrimage; English cathedrals; the Redeemed Christian Church of God) and Nigeria (Redeemed Christian Church of God). With Rosalind Hackett, he edited The Anthropology of Global Pentecostalism and Evangelicalism (New York University Press, 2015) and his book Powers of Pilgrimage: Religion in a World of Motion was also published by NYU Press, in 2022. With English and Nigerian colleagues he is engaged on a British Academy-funded project investigating the religious infrastructures in Lagos.

Professor Coleman was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2024 for his pioneering work in the development of both the anthropology of Christianity and the study of urban forms of religious expression.