Professor James A. Kapaló has a MA in Central and Eastern European Studies from the School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies, London and a PhD from the Department of the Study of Religions at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Over the past 25 years, he has conducted long term ethnographic fieldwork and archival research in Romania, Hungary and Moldova. Within the Department of the Study of Religions at UCC, he teaches a range of courses on both the Study of Religions and Anthropology programmes on Christianities in the modern world, material religion and archives and historical anthropology. 

Professor Kapaló’s research has primarily focused on the history and experience of religious and ethnic minorities in East Central Europe and is informed by the diverse fields of anthropology, history, folklore and transitional justice. 

Whilst exploring the impact of modernity and the state on local identities and vernacular belief systems of marginalised communities, his work increasingly explores the critical role of gender in the dynamics of religious change in the twentieth century and the creative agency of religious communities that have experienced state-sponsored repression and terror.

From September 2016 to 2021, he was Principal Investigator of the European Research Council Project Creative Agency and Religious Minorities: Hidden Galleries in the Secret Police Archives in Central and Eastern Europe (ERC project no. 677355), a four year project that explored the significance of the visual and material presence of religious minorities in the secret police archives in Hungary, Romania and the Republic of Moldova.

In 2013, Professor Kapalo co-founded, together with Dr. Lidia Guzy, MEWSC (Marginalised and Endangered Worldviews Study Centre) at UCC. The centre is a post disciplinary forum for scholars working on endangered worldviews and marginalised communities. 

Professor Kapalo’s currently teaches the following modules:

• RG2302 Christianities in a Global Age;
• RG2305 Authority and Community in Contemporary Christianity
• RG2312 Material Religion
• AY6018 History and Anthropology: Archives, Materiality and Memory 

He contributes to the BA and MA Anthropology with classes on the anthropology of Christianity and anthropology and photography (AY6013), research ethics and ethnographic practice (AY6015) as well as co-convening (with Dr Lidia Guzy) the postgraduate module RG6061 Indigenous Worldviews and Minority Religions.