Associate Professor
Associate Professor in History at University of Oxford
Alan Strathern works on the global history of religious encounter and conversion, particularly in the early modern period (1500-1800). However, he has recently completed a more general theoretical book about the nature of religious change and its relationship with politics across the whole of world history, Unearthly Powers: Religious and Political Change in World History (Cambridge 2019), while a companion volume will look at ruler conversions in Kongo, Hawaii, Japan and Thailand. He first specialised in Sri Lankan history, as in his first monograph, Kingship and Conversion in Sixteenth Century Sri Lanka (2007), and articles on such themes as origin myths, source criticism, sacred kingship, and ethnic identity.
Alan Strathern teaches both European and Global History as a Fellow at Brasenose College, and a Lecturer at St. John’s College.
