Maria José de Abreu

De Abreu’s work engages with a range of anthropological, philosophical, and literary debates about religion, temporality, movement, personhood, the human senses and their technological extensions. Her first book, The Charismatic Gymnasium: Evangelicalism and Extension in Contemporary Brazil  (forthcoming with Duke University Press), centers on a form of Catholic Charismatic revivalism in contemporary urban São Paulo, Brazil. A second project in progress is dedicated to thinking impasse as a condition intrinsic, though not exclusive, to neoliberal governance. Focusing on Portugal during and after the 2008 financial crisis, this second project is an attempt at theorizing from spaces of tension and performative paradox in ways that make decision—though not governance—difficult or impossible. Her work has appeared in Current Anthropology, Critical Inquiry, Anthropological Theory, Social Text, Social Analysis, The Immanent Frame and E-flux.