Byron Arthur Clark is a PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology at UBC. His work uses semiotic analysis to understand and describe symbolic communication at Neo-Pagan sacred places, particularly in the village of Glastonbury in England. Byron is originally from Cape Town, South Africa. He has a BA Honours cum Laude in Philosophy from Stellenbosch University (completed on exchange at the University of Amsterdam) and was awarded a Chevening Scholarship to do an MSc in Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford. Byron has also worked as an intellectual property specialist in the publishing industry (for Penguin Random House and Macmillan) and has had an extensive theatre and musical career.
Project Description
The research project, entitled “Sacred Place, Numinous Signs: The Semiotics of Glastonbury’s Pilgrimage Sites” is focused on describing the components of symbolic communication as they operate in religious expression at sacred sites in Glastonbury, particularly from a Neo-Pagan and Western Esoteric context. This supports three thematic research foci, on the concept of place, or place-making, on the gendering of ritual space and landscape and on discourses of nationalism and racialisation at play in New Religious Movements.