Mar 24, 2019
Dr. Andrew Chesnut earned his Ph.D degree in Latin American
History from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1995 and
joined the History Department faculty at the University of Houston
in 1997. He quickly became an internationally recognized expert on
Latin American religious history. Professor Chesnut was selected as
the inaugural recipient of the Bishop Walter Sullivan Chair in
Catholic Studies at VCU in 2008.
Professor Chesnut’s early work,
Born Again in Brazil: The Pentecostal Boom and the Pathogens of
Poverty (Rutgers University Press, 1997), traces the meteoric
rise of Pentecostalism among the popular classes in Brazil
following the disestablishment of the Roman Catholic Church. His
second book,
Competitive Spirits: Latin America’s New Religious Economy
(Oxford University Press, 2003) focuses on the three groups that
have prospered most in the region’s pluralist landscape, Protestant
Pentecostalism, the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, and African
disasporic religions (e.g., Brazilian Candomble and Haitian Vodou).
Professor Chesnut's most recent book is Devoted
to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint (Oxford
University Press, 2012). It is the first in-depth study of the
Mexican folk saint in English and has received widespread media
coverage.
Follow Dr. Andrew Chesnut on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/AndrewChesnut1
Visit: https://skeletonsaint.com/
Buy Devoted to Death: https://www.amazon.com/Devoted-Death-Santa-Muerte-Skeleton/dp/0190633336/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?keywords=Devoted+to+Death%3A+Santa+Muerte%2C+the+Skeleton+Saint&qid=1553112579&s=gateway&sr=8-1-fkmrnull