Dr Penelope Dransart
University of Wales, Lampeter
Penelope Dransart is Reader in Anthropology and Archaeology in the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Wales, Lampeter. She was educated at Grays School of Art, now part of the Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, where she was awarded a Diploma in Drawing and Painting (1977). Following the award of a Postgraduate Certificate for the Teaching of Art at Jordanhill College of Education (1979), she taught art in a Scottish secondary school. In 1985 she took an M.St. in Anthropological Archaeology at the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, where she was later awarded D.Phil in Ethnology (1991). In 1991-1992 she was Departmental Demonstrator at the Pitt Rivers Museum, where she co-curated the exhibition ‘Basketmakers–Meaning and Form in Native American Baskets’ (1992-1993) and was co-editor with Linda Mowat and Howard Morphy of the monograph that accompanied the exhibition. She was a research fellow at the Institute of Latin American Studies, University of London (1992-1993), and was appointed to a lectureship at Lampeter in 1994. Penelope specialises in material culture, with specific interests in the study of textiles, dress and gender. Her work focuses on textiles and other items of dress, such as rosaries, and the religious beliefs with such items are associated, as well as on the cult of saints. Another important research focus concerns Anthrozoology, or the study of human-animal interactions. In particular, her work has focused on the domestication and the herding of South American camelids (a group consisting of llamas, alpacas, vicuñas and guanacos). Her research has relied on a direct examination of a product for which the camelids were valued, the fleece itself, which is spun and woven into cloth. Her publications include Earth, water, fleece and fabric: an ethnography and archaeology of Andean camelid herding (2002) and ‘Concepts of spiritual nourishment in the Andes and Europe: a study of rosaries in cross-cultural contexts’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 8 (2002), pp 1-21. She also contributed to and edited Kay pacha: cultivating earth and water in the Andes (2006), a volume which was the outcome of a Wenner-Gren funded symposium at Lampeter. While a visiting fellow at CRASSH, Penelope will work on a study of Andean textiles collected by Henry Wellcome, which are now housed in various museum collections in Britain. This research will examine the notions of cultural transmission and disciplinary change.
