Laura Premack

Ph.D. Candidate
lpremack@email.unc.edu

Major Field: Global History

Other Fields: Africa and Latin American History

Advisor: John Chasteen and Lisa Lindsay

Research Interests:  I study the history of Pentecostalism in Brazil and Nigeria. Specifically, I explore the relationship between "traditional" African cosmology and "modern" Pentecostal practices by investigating the centrality of faith healing, prophecy, exorcism and, especially, spirit-possession to both. My dissertation project employs an Atlantic approach which makes use of primary sources from Nigeria, Brazil, the United States and Great Britain. I use my research subject as a lens with which to address larger questions of race, religion, spirituality, diaspora, transnationalism, globalization, and the lived experience of hope.