Parasites, Infrastructures and Islamic Networks

Brian Larkin (Columbia U)

Biographical Note
Prof. Brian Larkin (Barnard College, Columbia University, USA)
Brian Larkin is the director of graduate studies and a professor of anthropology at Barnard College, Columbia University. His research focuses on the ethnography and history of media in Nigeria. Most broadly he examines the introduction of media technologies into Nigeria — cinema, radio, digital media — and the religious, political, and cultural changes they bring about. He explores how media technologies comprise broader networked infrastructures that shape a whole range of actions from forms of political rule, to new urban spaces, to religious and cultural life. He has also published widely on issues of technology and breakdown, piracy and intellectual property, the global circulation of cultural forms, infrastructure and urban space, sound studies, and Nigerian film (Nollywood). He is currently completing the manuscript for Secular Machines: Media and the Materiality of Islamic Revival, which analyses the role media play in the rise of new Islamic movements in Nigeria and explores theoretical questions about technology and religion.