After studying classics and medicine, Nick Allen qualified in social anthropology at Oxford.  He then lectured at Durham and, from 1976 to 2001, at Oxford, where he  became Reader in the Social Anthropology of South Asia at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology.  His D.Phil. thesis was on the mythology and oral traditions of a Tibeto-Burman speaking community in East Nepal.  Apart from Himalayan comparativism, he has written on the macro-history of kinship systems and on the French tradition in sociological thought (Categories and classifications: Maussian reflections on the social, Oxford, Berghahn, 2000).  His major research at present is on Indo-European cultural comparativism, and in particular on the common origin of Sanskrit and ancient Greek epic. [G. Schaufelberger's French translations in PDF format of these essays are freely accessible, but you have to register for free at the Carcara Editions website to download them]

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