The Home Page of Robertson Allen

Welcome to the Thirdspace of Cyberspace!

This is Robertson Allen's website, and here are a few facts about me:

I am a Ph.D. candidate in sociocultural anthropology at the University of Washington.

I love playing/listening to music from around the world, and play the Highland bagpipes, penny whistle, saxophone, and piano, along with lots of other instruments that I have collected from various countries. I can be content listening to pretty much any genre of music except for contemporary Christian music, and anything that sounds like Slipknot--I just can't take it. I love hymns, though;

I am especially interested in Japanese culture, having lived there for three years teaching English at a public junior high school in Yamanashi-ken, the prefecture which claims half of Mt. Fuji. Japan is my second home--Tennessee is my first and Seattle my third;

I am a keen traveler and have been to over 30 countries--I try to make it out at least once a year;

I am a sci-fi/fantasy literature fan, but I know how to distinguish good from bad stuff (I think), and I feel that these genres are some of the most powerful tools available for cultural critique;

I study video games--among other things--and am interested in using anthropology to examine video games and the varying practices that are involved in their development, marketing, and consumption. I am currently doing my dissertation research in sociocultural anthropology on the institutions and communities surrounding the development of the US Army's online video game America's Army. The game is used as a public relations device by the Army, and applications of the game are also being used in modeling weapons systems and training soldiers in the Army for specific work-related functions. There are also millions of players worldwide who play the game as a form of socializing;

I am a Tennessean born and bred, a whiskey-sippin bluegrass lover who always yearns for his home but seems to always be away from it;

And I am a history buff, having majored in that in college, and I can talk about the minutiae of the Scottish enclosure movement, or the elements of Greek architecture in Japan's Shin-Yakushiji temple, for hours, if only you would let me. I participated in an archaeological dig a few summers ago in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria and absolutely loved it.


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To view some of my selected papers and documents, click here.


Summer 2005
Excavating a skeleton in Bulgaria The site: Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria Sunset in Istanbul
Excavating a skeleton in Bulgaria The site: Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria Sunset in Istanbul

Japan
Ginkakuji, Kyoto With a favorite ninth grade class Cosmos in Nara
Ginkakuji, Kyoto With a favorite ninth grade class Cosmos in Nara

India
Kausani, Uttaranchal The ghats of Varanasi The Taj
Kausani, Uttaranchal The ghats of Varanasi The Taj

Miscellaneous
Don Quiote's windmills, La Mancha, Spain Northern California coast Chris and Sylvia's wedding
Don Quiote's windmills, La Mancha, Spain "God Blesses America" Middlebury, Vermont Northern California coast Chris and Sylvia's wedding

For more galleries, click here.