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Expert Profile

Brian Mooney, B.A., J.D., Ph.D.
master teacher of Social Sciences and faculty coordinator for Anthropology, Sociology, and International Studies, Paul McGhee Division

Brian Mooney’s research and teaching in Anthropology at McGhee draws from his experience both in ethnographic research in anthropology and from his professional experience as a lawyer. He practiced law from 1984 to 1988 for the firm of Kelley Drye & Warren which at that time was representing the Union Carbide Corporation in the litigation following the 1984 Bhopal Gas Disaster, said to be the world’s worst industrial disaster.  That experience rekindled his interest in Anthropology - his undergraduate major - and motivated a radical change of direction as he returned to graduate school to pursue a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology, focusing on the subfield of legal anthropology.

Areas of Expertise: 

• Aftermath of the 1984 Union Carbide Gas Disaster in Bhopal, India
• International Legal Ramifications of Disaster
• Legal and Social Impact of Survivors
• Farsi

Recent Publications and Research:

• “Interpreting Women’s Protest:  Ethnographic Research with Women Survivors of the Bhopal Gas Disaster,” International Conference on the Ethnography of the Other in Contemporary India, University of Hyderabad, Department of Anthropology, Hyderabad, India, July 2007.
• “A Very Uncouth Affair:  Bhopal’s Bhujariya Festival and Transgendered Performance in Post-Colonial India,” presented at the American Anthropological Association 2003 Annual Meeting.
• " Encounters with Legal Texts:  Reading the Bhopal Litigation in its Social Context,” presented at the American Ethnological Society 2003 Annual Meeting.