SSH/ESPO Faculty of Economic, Social and Political Sciences and Communication (ESPO)
SSH/ESPO/PSAD Ecole des Sciences politiques et sociales / Louvain School of Political and Social Sciences (PSAD)
SSH/IACS Institute for the Analysis of Change in Contemporary and Historical Societies (IACCHOS)
SSH/RSCS Institut de recherche Religions, spiritualités, cultures, sociétés (RSCS)
SSH/IRIS Institut de recherche interdisciplinaire Saint-Louis (IRIS-L)
am a historian and anthropologist, full professor at the University of Louvain, where I also served as Dean of the Faculty of Economic, Social and Political Sciences. I teach anthropology of symbolic systems and their links with our environments, whether they are considered “natural” or “artificial”. I also teach at the Institut des Arts de Diffusion (IAD) and Campus Saint-Louis in Brussels.
My career has taken me to a variety of places: Canada, the United States, the Philippines, Mauritius, France, Belgium... and the digital world. Today, my research explores the imaginaries of virtual worlds, online sociability, rituals and emerging forms of digital collectives. I am interested in hardcore gamers, hackers and programmers, interactions between humans and artificial intelligence, but also more broadly in the ways in which digital technology is reconfiguring the ways in which we form societies, challenge and create together. Recently, I have been interested in movements of disconnection and resistance to digital technology and, finally, in non-living non-humans as social actors (glaciers, permafrost, water, robots, AI, programmes).
My recent publications include Dans la peau des gamers (Karthala, 2020), Jeux vidéo, nouvel opium du peuple ? (Karthala, 2020), Religious and the digital (Social Compass, 2020), Ethnographies du catholicisme contemporain (Karthala, 2021), Déconfiner l’Europe (Karthala, 2024) and Disasters (Karthala/B, 2024).
Learning units for 2025
| Label | Code |
|---|---|
| The psycho-anthropology of social and collaborative media | BCOMU2202 |
| Anthropology of symbolic systems: religions, imaginary worlds and virtual worlds | LANTR2020 |
| Séminaire de tutorat des jurys en anthropologie | LANTR2095 |
| Interdisciplinary seminar in biology, anthropology and archaeology | LBABA1301 |
| MOOC Penser critique | LESPO1001 |
| MOOC Découvrir l'anthropologie | LESPO1003 |
| Anthropology | LESPO1103 |
| Seminar of socio-anthropological exploration | LPOLS1213 |
| Thesis support seminar | LPSAD2900 |
| Anthropologie et santé | WMEDE1159 |
| Year | Label | School |
|---|---|---|
| 2003 | Docteur en sciences sociales: anthropologie | Université catholique de Louvain (Belgique) |
| 1998 | Bachelier canonique en théologie | Centre sèvres : Facultés jésuites de Paris (France) |
| 1996 | DEA en Anthropologie religieuse et histoire des religions | Université Paris-Sorbonne : Paris IV (France) |
| 1994 | Bachelier spécialisé en théologie | Université catholique de Louvain (Belgique) |
| 1994 | Licencié en histoire | Université catholique de Louvain (Belgique) |