Dr John Loewenthal

Teaching Fellow in Education

Biography

Background

I am a member of the Institute for Education, Community and Society at the Moray House School of Education and Sport, University of Edinburgh. I am Co-ordinator for the MSc Education General Pathway, and a member of the Children and Young People Thematic Hub and the Higher Education Research Group. 

I am a social anthropologist interested in various aspects of education. My research has so far explored what young adults would like to do with their lives, and how such ideas are produced, negotiated, and revised over time. My PhD thesis was entitled 'Aspirations of university graduates: an ethnography in New York and Los Angeles'. More broadly, I am interested in existential themes such as freedom, meaning, and constraint and how these are negotiated and re-learned across life. I consider education, work, relationships, culture, space and time to be of key interest as contexts in which people work out their lives. I am currently studying for a Diploma in Relational Counselling at The Spark in Glasgow. I previously designed a course, 'What makes life meaningful? Perspectives from anthropology' at the Oxford University Department for Continuing Education where I also taught 'Social Anthropology: An Introduction (Online)' for five years. I am Co-convenor of the European Network for Psychological Anthropology. 

Qualifications 

BA (Hons), First Class, Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Oxford 

MA Anthropology and Education, Columbia University (Margaret Mead Fellow) 

PhD Education, Oxford Brookes University (Funded Studentship) 

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy 

Certificate in Counselling Skills - Counselling and Psychotherapy in Scotland 

Postgraduate teaching

I have so far taught on the following post-graduate courses at Moray House: 

- The Philosophy of Education

- The Anthropology of Education and Learning 

- The Curriculum: context, change, and development 

- I am also supervising MSc Education dissertations and I welcome enquiries from potential students. Research areas that I would be interested in supervising include: 

Anthropology of education; youth aspirations; existential perspectives on education; meaning in life/ meanings of life; social and cultural dimensions of (higher) education; inter-generational dynamics in relation to education; university graduates; higher education transitions; international students (e.g. motivations, experiences, plans for the future); informal education (e.g. reading, travel); lifelong learning; philosophy of education; cultural studies (analysing literature or cultural media through theoretical perspectives).

Previously, I have taught as an Associate Lecturer in Social Anthropology at Oxford Brookes University (Introduction to Social Anthropology; European Societies) and as a Tutor in Social Anthropology at the Oxford University Department for Continuing Education (Social Anthropology: An Introduction (Online); What makes life meaningful? Perspectives from anthropology)

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

No

Research summary

At the University of Edinburgh, I am principally affiliated to the Children and Young People Thematic Hub and the Higher Education Research Group. Internationally, I am a member of the European Network for Psychological Anthropology, which I co-convene, and the Commission on Anthropology and Education. I have organised conference panels through both networks. 

My doctoral research was a person-centred ethnography of the aspirations and transitions of students and graduates from a university in New York City. A significant part of the project was two research trips to Los Angeles to follow the trajectories of graduates who had moved there, principally through aspirations to work in Hollywood. A central finding and argument across the research was that aspirations had 'fateful' consequences in tethering people to life paths that were often out of synchronisation with who else they might have become. This research was conducted over two calendar years (2017-18) spent as a Visiting Scholar at New York University. I was subsequently based for two and a half years at the Department of Educational Research, the Centre for Research and Advanced Studies (CINVESTAV) in Mexico City as a visiting doctoral student then post-doctoral researcher. Previously (2016-17), I was research assistant for the Urban-Rural Youth Transitions project in Britain: a comparative ethnography of transitions out of school (PI, Dr. Patrick Alexander). Before this (2015), my master's research (published as a book chapter) explored the travel imaginaries and senses of belonging of adolescents in New York City.

Further to publications below, I have published the following blog posts or online articles: 

Loewenthal, J. 2022. Existential mobility and immobility through higher education. The University of Edinburgh, Higher Education Research Group Blog.  

Loewenthal, J. 2018. Talking about race in text and in person: Is hiding behind a screen helpful? Teaching Anthropology: A Blog of The Royal Anthropological Institute.

Loewenthal, J. 2017. Between categories and cosmopolitanism: on the subtleties of voters’ persuasions. The Sociological Review Magazine [Online]. Sociology of Brexit Collection. 

Loewenthal, J. 2017. Dismantling a bedroom of youth: how space and material culture mediate the life course. Association for Anthropology, Gerontology, and the Life Course. Life Course Blog.

I ran the project blog for the Urban-Rural Youth Transitions project, writing monthly posts between 2016-17. Select posts include: 

Loewenthal, J. 2017. Geography and epistemology in the production of aspirations

Loewenthal, J. 2017. Anxiety and ambivalence towards multiple uncertainties after schooling

Loewenthal, J. 2017. Between background and belonging: how space shapes identities after schooling

Loewenthal, J. 2017. University as both vehicle to, and shelter from, the future 

Loewenthal, J. 2016. Culture and personality in flux: an end of year reflection on an unrelenting future

Loewenthal, J. 2016. Imagining the future in the same place as always: school leavers not at uni

View all 7 publications on Research Explorer

Conference details

Guest Lectures

“Existential (Im)mobilities through Higher Education: students and graduates negotiating meaning and constraint” – School of Education, Oxford Brookes University (Online) – 09 March 2022

“Against ‘Youth Cultures’: Studying Lives in Motion” – MA class on Youth Cultures (Prof. John Broughton) – Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, USA – 24 April 2018

“Temporalities of Youth Culture: How Social and Institutional Structures Shape Activities and Ideas” – MA class on Youth Cultures (Prof. John Broughton) – Teachers College, Columbia University, NY, USA – 25 April 2017

Conference panels organised

Panel Convenor (with Michelle Zhang and Jessica Garber) – “Afterlives of education and the revision of 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

Panel Convenor – “Anthropological insights into searches for meaning across the life course” – European Network for Psychological Anthropology – Inaugural conference 2021: Mind Embedded and Embodied: Futures of Psychological Anthropology – Online (Organised by the University of Helsinki) – 1-3 June 2021

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

Conference presentations

"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 Inaugural Biennial Meetings: Mind Embedded and Embodied: Futures of Psychological Anthropology – The University of Helsinki, 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” – 3rd 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 116th 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 21st Century University Leavers in London and New York City” – 6th Annual Royal Anthropological Institute Student Research Conference: Anthropology in the 21st 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 21st 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

Seminar presentations

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

Seminar discussion about a pre-circulated draft of my article, 'Supportive or overpowering? Parental involvement in student aspirations during and after higher education' - University of Edinburgh, Higher Education Research Group, Reading Group (Online) - 15 November 2022

Seminar discussion (in Spanish) about my pre-circulated published article ‘Fateful aspects of aspiration among graduates in New York and Los Angeles’ – Postgraduate Seminar – Department of Educational Research, Centre for Research and Advanced Studies, National Polytechnic Institute, Mexico – Mexico City (Online) – 10 February 2021

“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 – Mexico City – 22 May 2019

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

“How Changing Circumstances Impact Future Imaginaries: University Graduates’ Transitions to Adulthood in New York City” – School of Education Seminar Series – Oxford Brookes University – 09 November 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 Indebted Futures: Risk calculation during university application amongst adult applicants in New York City” – Introduction to Learning and Teaching in Higher Education – Oxford Brookes University – 20 November 2015

Seminar discussion about my pre-circulated research proposal, 'Ontologies of New York City Youth' - Colloquium in Applied Anthropology - Teachers College, Columbia University - 09 April 2015

Posters

“Imagining One’s Future in the World: Aspiration, Limitation and Dreams of Global Travel among New York City Youth” – ‘GetPublished!’ Student Research Conference – Oxford Brookes University – 15 April 2016

“The Lived and Imagined City amongst New York City Youth” – European Symposium on Adolescent Research – University of Roehampton, London – 30 November 2015

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