Leo Coleman

Leo Coleman serves as Chair of the Social Science & Cultural Studies Department at Pratt Institute's School of Liberal Arts & Sciences, where he leads academic initiatives in cultural anthropology and related disciplines. His scholarly profile reflects a dual institutional background, having previously held an appointment as Associate Professor of Anthropology at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

Dr. Coleman earned his PhD in Anthropology from Princeton University and completed his MA (Hons) in Social Anthropology & History of Art at the University of St Andrews. His educational background laid the foundation for his interdisciplinary approach that bridges anthropological theory with historical and visual analysis.

His research interests center on the intersections of technology, politics, and urban life, with particular expertise in critical infrastructure studies. Coleman examines how technological systems like electrical grids shape political imaginaries and social relations, especially in postcolonial contexts. His work explores urban solitude, legalism in anthropology, constitutional form, and the historical transformations of energy concepts across different cultural and political settings. He approaches these topics through both historical and ethnographic methods, conducting fieldwork in Delhi, India and Scotland.

His publications reveal a consistent focus on infrastructure as political and cultural phenomenon. The most recent works examine global political aesthetics through infrastructure, electrification metaphors in social theory, and the historical development of energy concepts. Coleman frequently publishes in top anthropology journals including American Ethnologist, Anthropological Quarterly, and Comparative Studies in Society and History.

• Publication of 'A Moral Technology: Electrification as Political Ritual in New Delhi' with Cornell University Press (2017)
• Co-edited special issue of Verge: Studies in Global Asias on 'Infrastructures and Global Political Aesthetics' (2020)
• Contributed to special issue on 'Infrastructural Lives' in the Asia-Pacific Journal of Anthropology

As an educator and academic leader, Coleman maintains active interests in anthropological theory and its applications to contemporary political challenges. His current book projects examine legal and aesthetic formalism as interpretive methods for understanding constitutional limits to executive power, and the postcolonial history of energy concepts in social thought. His teaching and mentorship reflect his commitment to training the next generation of anthropologists in critical infrastructure studies and political anthropology.