ABOUT CHRIS
Chris is a Professor of Anthropology with a particular interest in human origins. He focuses especially on previously unsolved problems such as the evolutionary emergence of language.
Chris lives in London. He has three children and eight grandchildren, all living close by. He went to Sussex University when it first opened in 1964, remaining there to study Russian futurist poetry for an M.Phil. degree.
During the 1970s, he worked as a Postman and Post Office van driver in Brixton. In 1978, he gained a Diploma in Anthropology at University College London, going on to complete his Ph.D. ten years later. He began teaching anthropology at the University of East London in 1990, was appointed Professor in 1998 and retired from full-time teaching in 2008.
A London School of Samba percussionist and Reclaim the Streets activist during the 1990s, Chris played a critical role in establishing Tactical Frivolity, Rhythms of Resistance, Pink and Silver and other celebrated currents of activist music and carnival.
In 1978, he founded the Radical Anthropology Group, which since then has been running weekly lectures open to all every Tuesday evening. These talks are now hosted by the Department of Anthropology at University College London as part of its outreach programme. In 1996, in collaboration with Jim Hurford of Edinburgh University, Chris co-founded EVOLANG — today the main international body responsible for coordinating research into the evolutionary emergence of language in our species.
He is currently conducting research into human origins at University College London.
EXPLORE CHRIS’ WORK
If you’re looking for an introduction to Chris’ work here’s one thing to listen to, watch or read:
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‘The chief value of the study of human origins is that it nails the myth that ‘no revolution can ever change human nature’. It shows, on the contrary, that everything distinctively human about our nature – our ability to speak, to see ourselves as others see us, to aspire to act on moral principle – has come to prevail in our species thanks precisely to the greatest revolution in history, ‘the revolution which worked’.’
CHRIS THE REVOLUTIONARY
If you want to know more about Chris’ politics and activism, here’s a film by his grandson.
