John S. Burdick
Professor and Chair, Anthropology
Degree
Ph.D., City University of New York, 1990
Specialties
Religious movements, politics, gender, medical, African Americans, Brazil, Latin America
Courses
ANT 483/683 Fall 2012
ANT 185 Fall 2011
ANT 427/627 Fall 2011
ANT 484/684 Spring 2011
Biography
My work is an effort to understand the role of grassroots action in bringing about social, political, and cultural change in Brazil and Latin America. My empirical research focuses on liberationist Catholicism, Pentecostalism, African religious movements, the Workers' Party, black consciousness movement and the landless workers' movement. I am currently working on a project that charts the causes and effects of an entirely new religio-political movement in Brazil: an emerging, vibrant network among evangelical churches of leaders committed to uniting their faith to a black consciousness and anti-racist agenda. This movement has an important transnational dimension, as leaders cross borders to the United States to undertake pilgrimages to the sites of the freedom trail of the American Civil Rights Movement. The project thus examines both the cultural effects of this movement for Brazil, and its embeddedness in processes of ideological transnationalism. I have a special commitment to building ties between academic research and social movement practice, through creating collaborative research teams and introducing research findings into social movements' ongoing self-assessments. I am founder and director of the Syracuse Social Movement Initiative, a clinic for Syracuse students who desire to bridge the gap between academic scholarship and social activism.
I am the Director of the Program on the Analysis and Resolution of Conflicts (PARC) Project Advocacy and Activism Committee, on the steering committee for the Program on Latin America and Director of the Syracuse Social Movements Initiative (SSMI). Information on my courses may be found on my website.
Publications
2013. The Color of Sound: Race, Religion and Music in Brazil. New York: New York University Press.
2011. “Are Black Gospel Singers Organic Intellectuals? Music, Religion and Racial Identity in São Paulo, Brazil”.Afro-Hispanic Review 28.2: 211-222
2010. “A Conversation Between Conflict Resolution and Social Movement Scholars.” Co- authored with Beth Roy and Louis Kriesberg, Conflict Resolution Quarterly 27/4: 347-368
2009a. "The Singing Voice and Racial Politics on the Brazilian Evangelical Music Scene.” Latin American Music Review 30: 1: 25-55
2009b. “Collective Identity and Racial Thought on São Paulo’s Black Gospel Music Scene.” Music and Arts in Action 1: 2: 16-29
2008. “Class, Place and Blackness in São Paulo’s Gospel Music Scene,” Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic and Racial Studies Volume 3, Issue 2 July: 149 – 169
2008 "The Power of Voice in Black Gospel Music in Sao Paulo,” Journal of Latin American Popular Music
2008 “Class, Place and Blackness in Sao Paulo’s Gospel Music Scene,” Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic and Racial Studies
2008 “A Dialogue About Iraq”, Peace Newsletter
2008 American Academy of Religion, November, “The Current State of Liberation Theology
2008 Washington University, St Louis, “Affirmative Action in Brazil”, April 7-8
2008 BRASA Tulane, “The Power of the Black Voice in Brazilian Evangelicalism”, March 30
2008 AAA November. “Current Analyses of Social Movements”
2007-08 Arts and Sciences, Syracuse University: Ray Smith Symposium on Workers Struggles and Narrative in the Twentieth Century, $15,000, co-submitted with Steven J. Parks of the SU Writing Program.
2007 “Black Identity Politics in a Surprising Place” BRASAnotes
2007 American Association of Colleges and Universities. Grant to develop Community research, co-submitted with Steven J. Parks of SU’s Writing Program. $10,000.
2007 AAA, “Vice and Virtue in Brazilian Black Gospel”, November 29
2005 “Why is the Evangelical Black Movement Growing in Brazil?” Journal of Latin American Studies 37:2 (May)
2005 Review of Donna Goldstein, Laughter Out of Place, in The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (February)
2004 Legacies of Liberation: The Progressive Catholic Church in Brazil at the Turn of a New Century (Ashgate)
2004 "The Afro-Catholic Liturgy and the Dance of Eurocentrism in Brazil", in Henry Golsdschmidt and Elizabeth McAlister, eds., Race and Religion in the Americas, Oxford University Press.
2002 "Negra and Mestica: Emergent Meanings in Brazil's Black Pastoral", Luso-Brazilian Review
2000 The Church and the Grassroots in Latin America: Perspectives on Thirty Years of Activism, (co-edited with Ted Hewiott. Greenwood Press
1998 Blessed Anastacia: Women, Race and Popular Christianity in Brazil. Routledge Press
1993 Looking for God in Brazil: The Progressive Catholic Church in Urban Brazil's Religious Arena. (California)
Research Grants and Awards
2007 American Association of Colleges and Universities, Grant to Develop Collaborative Action Research (along with Steven Parks) ($10,000)
2007 Humanities Council of Syracuse University, Grant to Organize Spring 2008 Ray Smith Symposium ($15,000)