Thomas J. Csordas – författare

How does religious healing work, if indeed it does? In this study of the contemporary North American movement known as the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, Thomas Csordas investigates the healing practices of a modern religious movement to provide a rich cultural analysis of the healing experience. This is not only a book about healing, however, but also one about the nature of self and self- transformation. Blending ethnographic data and detailed case studies, Csordas examines processes of sensory imagery, performative utterance, orientation, and embodiment. His book forms the basis for a rapprochement between phenomenology and semiotics in culture theory that will interest anthropologists, philosophers, psychologists, physicians, and students of comparative religion and healing.

This innovative collection examines the transnational movements, effects, and transformations of religion in the contemporary world, offering a fresh perspective on the interrelation between globalization and religion. "Transnational Transcendence" challenges some widely accepted ideas about this relationship - in particular, that globalization can be understood solely as an economic phenomenon and that its religious manifestations are secondary. The book points out that religion's role remains understudied and undertheorized as an element in debates about globalization, and it raises questions about how and why certain forms of religious practice and intersubjectivity succeed as they cross national and cultural boundaries. Framed by Thomas J. Csordas' introduction, this timely volume both urges further development of a theory of religion and globalization and constitutes an important step toward that theory.

Language, Charisma, and Creativity: The Ritual Life of a Religious Movement examines the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, a contemporary religious movement that has gained significant global traction. The book investigates how language and creativity fuel charisma within the movement, exploring the interplay between ritual performance and everyday practices. The author situates this study within broader anthropological debates, aiming to unravel how religious participants navigate the tension between the exotic and familiar, a duality that characterizes both the movement's rituals and its reception in secular societies. By employing ethnographic methods, the author delves into the nuances of Charismatic ritual life, including prophecy and healing practices, demonstrating how these acts foster a "sacred self" through embodied and collective experiences.The text is structured into three parts, blending historical context, ethnographic observations, and theoretical insights. Early chapters outline the movement's evolution, from its origins in North America to its global spread, highlighting its diversity and organizational complexities. The book then shifts to focus on the community dynamics and ritual performances of The Word of God, a prominent Charismatic group. It critically examines how rituals such as prophecy and glossolalia (speaking in tongues) generate and sustain charisma as a collective self-process. Ultimately, the work seeks to contribute to broader discussions on creativity in ritual and the role of religious movements in shaping identity within the postmodern cultural landscape.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1997.

In this groundbreaking study based on five years of in-depth ethnographic and interdisciplinary research, Troubled in the Land of Enchantment explores the well-being of adolescents hospitalized for psychiatric care in New Mexico. Anthropologists Janis H. Jenkins and Thomas J. Csordas present a gripping picture of psychic distress, familial turmoil, and treatment under the regime of managed care that dominates the mental health care system.  The authors make the case for the centrality of struggle in the lives of youth across an array of extraordinary conditions, characterized by personal anguish and structural violence. Critical to the analysis is the cultural phenomenology of existence disclosed through shifting narrative accounts by youth and their families as they grapple with psychiatric diagnosis, poverty, misogyny, and stigma in their trajectories through multiple forms of harm and sites of care. Jenkins and Csordas compellingly direct our attention to the conjunction of lived experience, institutional power, and the very possibility of having a life.

In this groundbreaking study based on five years of in-depth ethnographic and interdisciplinary research, Troubled in the Land of Enchantment explores the well-being of adolescents hospitalized for psychiatric care in New Mexico. Anthropologists Janis H. Jenkins and Thomas J. Csordas present a gripping picture of psychic distress, familial turmoil, and treatment under the regime of managed care that dominates the mental health care system.  The authors make the case for the centrality of struggle in the lives of youth across an array of extraordinary conditions, characterized by personal anguish and structural violence. Critical to the analysis is the cultural phenomenology of existence disclosed through shifting narrative accounts by youth and their families as they grapple with psychiatric diagnosis, poverty, misogyny, and stigma in their trajectories through multiple forms of harm and sites of care. Jenkins and Csordas compellingly direct our attention to the conjunction of lived experience, institutional power, and the very possibility of having a life.

Language, Charisma, and Creativity: The Ritual Life of a Religious Movement examines the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, a contemporary religious movement that has gained significant global traction. The book investigates how language and creativity fuel charisma within the movement, exploring the interplay between ritual performance and everyday practices. The author situates this study within broader anthropological debates, aiming to unravel how religious participants navigate the tension between the exotic and familiar, a duality that characterizes both the movement's rituals and its reception in secular societies. By employing ethnographic methods, the author delves into the nuances of Charismatic ritual life, including prophecy and healing practices, demonstrating how these acts foster a "sacred self" through embodied and collective experiences.The text is structured into three parts, blending historical context, ethnographic observations, and theoretical insights. Early chapters outline the movement's evolution, from its origins in North America to its global spread, highlighting its diversity and organizational complexities. The book then shifts to focus on the community dynamics and ritual performances of The Word of God, a prominent Charismatic group. It critically examines how rituals such as prophecy and glossolalia (speaking in tongues) generate and sustain charisma as a collective self-process. Ultimately, the work seeks to contribute to broader discussions on creativity in ritual and the role of religious movements in shaping identity within the postmodern cultural landscape.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1997.

Students of culture have been increasingly concerned with the ways in which cultural values are 'inscribed' on the body. These essays go beyond this passive construal of the body to a position in which embodiment is understood as the existential condition of cultural life. From this standpoint embodiment is reducible neither to representations of the body, to the body as an objectification of power, to the body as a physical entity or biological organism, nor to the body as an inalienable centre of individual consciousness. This more sensate and dynamic view is applied by the contributors to a variety of topics, including the expression of emotion, the experience of pain, ritual healing, dietary customs, and political violence. Their purpose is to contribute to a phenomenological theory of culture and self - an anthropology that is not merely about the body, but from the body.

Anthropologists have expressed wariness about the concept of evil even in discussions of morality and ethics, in part because the concept carries its own cultural baggage and theological implications in Euro-American societies. Addressing the problem of evil as a distinctly human phenomenon and a category of ethnographic analysis, this volume shows the usefulness of engaging evil as a descriptor of empirical reality where concepts such as violence, criminality, and hatred fall short of capturing the darkest side of human existence.