Ken George is Professor of Anthropology in the Australian National University (ANU) College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University, having served previously at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Harvard University, and as Editor of the Journal of Asian Studies (2005-2008).

Ken’s ethnographic and art historical research in Asia began with a decade of work on the cultural politics of ritual violence in highland Sulawesi, Indonesia. He subsequently conducted a long-term collaborative project on contemporary Islamic art and art publics across Southeast Asia. He completed his PhD from the University of Michigan.

His research has been supported by the Social Science Research Council, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and the American Institute of Indian Studies.

Ken’s books include the prize-winning Showing Signs of Violence:The Cultural Politics of a Twentieth Century Headhunting Ritual (1996); Spirited Politics: Religion and Public Life in Contemporary Southeast Asia (2005, co-editor); and Picturing Islam: Art and Ethics in a Muslim Lifeworld (2010).

His current research with Kirin Narayan has been supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Project Award and explores the intermingling of religion, technology, and infrastructure in India.