Ph.D. Candidate
lpremack@email.unc.edu
Major Field: Global History
Other Fields: African, Latin American, Atlantic and Religious History
Advisers: John C. Chasteen and Lisa A. Lindsay
B.A. Wesleyan University, 1997 (History)
Senior Essay: “‘Women and Development’ in Latin America”
Ed.M. Harvard University, 2002
M.A. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2007
M.A. Thesis: “‘The Holy Rollers Are Invading Our Territory’: Southern Baptist Missionaries and the Early Years of Pentecostalism in Brazil, 1910–1935″
Ph.D. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2013
Dissertation: “Missionaries, Prophets, Spirits and Demons: The Global Pentecostal Movement in Brazil and Nigeria, 1910–2010″
Research Interests
My dissertation, “Missionaries, Prophets, Spirits and Demons: The Global Pentecostal Movement in Brazil and Nigeria, 1910–2010,” examines the transnational flows of people, texts, beliefs, and practices in the emergence of what may be the world’s fastest growing religious movement. I compare Pentecostalism in Brazil and Nigeria—countries with 1) two of the world’s largest populations of Pentecostals and 2) the world’s two largest populations of African descent—in order to determine why the movement is growing so quickly and to see what can be learned about its roots and routes through this comparative analysis. I aim to challenge the neat category of “the Pentecostal movement” by exploring its history, practices, and contradictions in two unique locations; I want to show how Pentecostalism is not the single, monolithic movement it is often considered to be but rather different things to different people in different places. Ultimately, I hope to contribute to our understanding of processes of globalization, religious transformation, and cultural continuity and change. The broader subjects which interest me include race, nationhood, diaspora, transnationalism, the spirit world, and the lived experience of hope.