John Loewenthal

Biography

Dr. John Loewenthal joined Keele University as a Lecturer in Education in September 2023. He is an anthropologist and a Convenor of the European Network for Psychological Anthropology. John obtained a First Class BA in Archaeology and Anthropology (University of Oxford), an MA in Anthropology and Education, as a Margaret Mead Fellow (Columbia University), and a PhD in Education, through a funded Studentship (Oxford Brookes University). His PhD research, 'Aspirations of university graduates: an ethnography in New York and Los Angeles' explored the lives and aspirations of a group of young adults from a university in New York City and investigated how their aspirations were produced, negotiated, and revised over time.

After conducting this research as a Visiting Scholar at New York University (2017-18), John was based at the Centre for Research and Advanced Studies (CINVESTAV) in Mexico City as a Visiting Doctoral Student (2019-20), then Post-doctoral Researcher (2021-22). Meanwhile, he spent five years as a Tutor in Social Anthropology at the Oxford University Department for Continuing Education (2017-22), teaching ‘Social Anthropology: An Introduction (Online)', and designing the course, ‘What makes life meaningful? Perspectives from anthropology’. John has also worked as an Associate Lecturer in Social Anthropology at Oxford Brookes University (2016-21) and as a Teaching Fellow in Education at the University of Edinburgh (2021-23).

John holds a Certificate in Counselling Skills and is studying for a Diploma in Relational Counselling (integrative modality). This training to practice as a therapist breathes life into his anthropological and educational interests. His research interests include aspirations, searches for meaning, higher education students, the life course, lifelong learning, existential anthropology, and counselling and psychotherapy. John serves as Chair of the School Ethics Committee within the School of Social Sciences.

Teaching

John is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. At Keele, he teaches mainly on the MA Education, and is module lead for:

• EDU-40122 Education, Employment and Professional Identity
• EDU-40123 Research Methods
• EDU-40160 Dissertation (online)
• EDU-40156 Research Design (online)
• EDU-40161 Leading in a Complex World (online)

John supervises BA and MA dissertations. He welcomes enquiries from potential PhD students interested in the following topics or related areas:

Anthropology/sociology of education, ageing and the life course, adult education, existential perspectives on education, higher education students and staff, higher education mobilities, aspirations, family dynamics around education, informal education and lifelong learning, self-knowledge and subjectivity, counselling and psychotherapy, mental health and wellbeing, existential and psychological anthropology.

Conferences

Conference panels organised

“Lifelong learning through counselling and psychotherapy” (with Suzana Jovičić) – Royal Anthropological Institute 2024 conference: Anthropology and Education – Senate House, London – 25-28 June 2024 

"Entangled agencies in existential anthropology" (with Samuele Poletti) – European Network for Psychological Anthropology Biennial Conference: Psychology and Anthropology in a Changing World – University of Oslo – 07-09 June 2023

“Afterlives of education and the revision of aspirations” (with Michelle Zhang and Jessica Garber) –– International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences World Congress 2021: Heritages, global interconnections in a possible world – Yucatán, Mexico (Virtual) – 09-13 November 2021

“Anthropological insights into searches for meaning across the life course” – European Network for Psychological Anthropology Biennial Conference: Mind Embedded and Embodied: Futures of Psychological Anthropology – University of Helsinki, Finland (Online) – 01-03 June 2021

“Temporalities of work, money, and fantasy” (with Patrick Alexander) – Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK and Commonwealth Annual Conference 2018: Sociality, Matter, and the Imagination: Re-creating Anthropology – University of Oxford – 18-21 September 2018

Conference presentations

“Existential pedagogy, teaching as ethnography, and encouragement over explication” – New normalities? Rethinking educational practices in times of crisis and challenge – Teaching Anthropology Network – Online – 21-22 September 2023

“Empowered or infantilised? Entangled agency between young adults and their parents in the USA” – European Network for Psychological Anthropology Biennial Meetings: Psychology and Anthropology in a Changing World – University of Oslo – 07-09 June 2023

"Constraining consequences of higher education: graduates reckoning with fateful afterlives of their aspirations" – International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences World Congress 2021: Heritages, global interconnections in a possible world – Yucatán, Mexico (Virtual) – 9-13 November 2021

“Why do what with one’s time or life? Graduate deliberations about where to find meaning, and whether it should be through work” – European Network for Psychological Anthropology Biennial Conference: Mind Embedded and Embodied: Futures of Psychological Anthropology –University of Helsinki, Finland (Online) – 01-03 June 2021

“Hopeful imaginings about where to find fulfilment and fears about not knowing: a view from graduates in the USA” – Oxford Brookes University Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences research conference: Hopes and Fears – Online – 05-07 May 2021

“Wrestling with fate as education: elite graduates in New York and Los Angeles coming to terms with constraining conditions” – 3^rd Conference on Anthropology and Education: The Work of Education – Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, USA – 26-27 October 2018

“Running to nowhere? Velocities and outcomes of graduate aspirations in New York and Los Angeles” – Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK and Commonwealth Annual Conference 2018: Sociality, Matter, and the Imagination: Re-creating Anthropology – University of Oxford – 18-21 September 2018

Loewenthal, J. and Alexander, P. “Drawing connections at intersections: comparing discourses of ‘expectation’ and the future among final year students at an elite university and a local high school in New York City” – Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Annual Research Conference – Oxford Brookes University – 22 January 2018

“Between omnipotence and immobility: a comparison of finance, Hollywood, and further study as popular pathways among graduates from an elite university in New York” – Materialities and Mobilities in Education – University of Oxford – 08 January 2018

“Deliberations of meaningful futures: on the social and cultural production of graduates in New York” – American Anthropological Association 116^th Annual Meeting: Anthropology Matters! – Washington DC, USA –29 November-03 December 2017

“Imagining heritage through dreams of travel” – Heritages of Migration: Moving Objects, Stories and Home – National Museum of Immigration, Buenos Aires, Argentina – 06-10 April 2017

“Collectivizing individuals and conceptualizing emotions in the demographically diverse, temporally transformative contexts of university leavers in New York City” – AAA Society for Psychological Anthropology, Biennial Meetings – New Orleans, USA – 09-12 March 2017

“Debt and desire after graduation” – Transforming Research in Education: Annual Doctoral Conference – Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol – 31 May-01 June 2016

“The social, cultural and educational dynamics of “change” among 21^st century university leavers in London and New York City” – 6^th Annual Royal Anthropological Institute Student Research Conference: Anthropology in the 21^st Century – Oxford Brookes University – 18 May 2016

“Maps and other methods for eliciting emotional connections to imagined times and places” – Innovative Research Methods with Children and Young People – Cardiff University – 25 April 2016

“The implications of higher education upon graduates’ immediate and imagined futures” – Becoming a 21^st Century Graduate: Learning and Teaching Conference 2016 – University of Roehampton, London – 20 April 2016

“A Socio-economic ethnography of Delhi’s informal waste management sector” – University of Oxford Annual Archaeological and Anthropological Fieldwork Conference – University of Oxford – 13 March 2014

Other talks

“Hearing humanity: counselling and psychotherapy as an intimate educational anthropology” – European Network for Psychological Anthropology Work-in-Progress Seminar (Online) – 26 Octobe 2023

"Dialectics between fatefulness and fluidity in specialisations from higher education to a career" - Fluidity, Education & Society Network seminar (Online) - 16 November 2022

“Existential (im)mobilities through higher education: students and graduates negotiating meaning and constraint” – invited guest lecture – School of Education, Oxford Brookes University (Online) – 09 March 2022

“Aspiration, imagination, and the life course: an ethnography of graduate trajectories in New York City” – Postgraduate seminar – Department of Educational Research, Centre for Research and Advanced Studies, National Polytechnic Institute, Mexico City – 22 May 2019

“Against ‘youth cultures’: studying lives in motion” – Guest lecture – MA class on Youth Cultures (Prof. John Broughton) – Columbia University, NYC, USA – 24 April 2018

“Temporalities of youth culture: how social and institutional structures shape activities and ideas” – Guest lecture – MA class on Youth Cultures (Prof. John Broughton) – Columbia University, NYC, USA – 25 April 2017

Alexander, P., Loewenthal, J., and Butt. G. “Urban and rural youth transitions: life after school in London and Oxfordshire” – School of Education Seminar Series – Oxford Brookes University – 07 December 2016

“What factors, forces or forms of capital shape different trajectories post-university?” – Inequality and Social Justice in Education: Issues of Class, Race, Gender and Sexuality – Graduate Seminar Series, University of Warwick – 19 May 2016

“Imagining one’s future in the world: aspiration, limitation and dreams of global travel among New York City Youth” – (Poster) – ‘GetPublished!’ Student Research Conference – Oxford Brookes University – 15 April 2016

“The lived and imagined city amongst New York City Youth” – (Poster)- European Symposium on Adolescent Research – University of Roehampton, London – 30 November 2015