Dr. Johanna Richlin
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Ph.D. Stanford University, 2016
M.A. Stanford University, 2012
M.T.S. Harvard Divinity School, 2010
B.A. Wesleyan University, 2008
Richlin CV
Research Interests
Prayer, ritual and healing; Affect, emotion and subjectivity; U.S. religion and society; Migrant experience; Healthcare encounters, perceptions and beliefs; U.S. and Brazil.
Dr. Richlin specializes in the anthropology of religion and psychological and medical anthropology, with expertise in evangelical Christianity in the U.S. and Brazil, U.S. migration, studies of affect and emotion, and gender, health and society.
Her first research project explored the impact of U.S. migration experience on the varied religious beliefs, choices, and sentiments of Brazilian migrants in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan region. From this body of research, she published a research article in Current Anthropology, entitled “The Affective Therapeutics of Migrant Faith: Evangelical Christianity among Brazilians in Greater Washington, D.C” (2019), and completed her first book, In the Hands of God: How Evangelical Belonging Transforms Migrant Experience In the United States (Princeton University Press, 2022). Richlin’s research was reviewed in The Economist (“Religion and Vulnerability: Why Charismatic Christianity is Popular with Migrants” (2019)) and featured on The Chris Voss Show (2022).
Richlin’s current research investigates U.S. healthcare experience and vaccine beliefs, behaviors, and solidarities among diverse demographics. The first publication related to this project, “From Iatrogenesis to Vaccine Skepticism: U.S. Mothers’ Negative Vaccine Perceptions and Non-vaccination Practices as Reverberations of Medical Harm,” was published in Spring 2023 in Medical Anthropology Quarterly. This research was also the subject of a short-form essay for The Conversation.
Publications:
Book
In the Hands of God: How Evangelical Belonging Transforms Migrant Experience in the U.S. (Princeton University Press, 2022).
Media: Interviewed by Chris Voss on “The Chris Voss Show,” June 7, 2022, https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-chris-voss-show-podcast-in-the-hands-of/id343172752?i=1000565533049
Articles and Chapters
“From Iatrogenesis to Vaccine Skepticism: U.S. Mothers’ Negative Vaccine Perceptions and Non-vaccination Practices as Reverberations of Medical Harm,” Medical Anthropology Quarterly May 10, 2023, online ahead of print [9000 words].
“Immigration Influx: The Remaking of Contemporary Christianity,” [6,000 words] The Handbook for Contemporary Christianity, Mark Lamport, ed. (Rowman and Littlefield, 2022).
“The ‘Affective Therapeutics’ of Migrant Faith: Evangelical Christianity among Brazilians in Greater Washington, D.C.,” Current Anthropology 60:3 (2019): 369-390. [13,000 words, published as a “research forum” alongside responses from 5 leading scholars and my 2,000-word reply].
Media: Bruce Clark, “Why Charismatic Christianity is popular with migrants,” The Economist,
August 3, 2019, https://www.economist.com/erasmus/2019/08/03/why-charismatic-christianity-is-popular-with-migrants.
Book Reviews and Public Writing
Book Review, The Charismatic Gymnasium by Maria Abreú, Journal for the Royal Anthropological Institute, April 11, 2024, online ahead of print.
“Vaccine-skeptical Mothers Say Bad Healthcare Experiences Made them Distrust the Medical System,” The Conversation, March 11, 2024. https://theconversation.com/vaccine-skeptical-mothers-say-bad-health-care-experiences-made-them-distrust-the-medical-system-217433. Lead article in The Conversation and republished in numerous outlets in the U.S. and abroad, including Slate, Scientific American, The San Francisco Chronicle, SFGate, Yahoo News, Yahoo News (Canada), The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Maine Morning Star and La Tercera (Chile).
Media: Interviewed by Celeste Headlee on “Hear Me Out,” a podcast from Slate Magazine, March 29, 2024.
Contact:
Telephone: 207.581.1809
Fax: 207.581.1823
Email: johanna.richlin@maine.edu
Department of Anthropology
University of Maine
5773 Stevens Hall So., Rm. 230
Orono, Maine 04469-5773