Emory University’s Candler School of Theology is hosting Fulbright-Nehru Scholar Sarbeswar Sahoo (PhD, National University of Singapore) for the summer of 2023. Sahoo is professor of sociology in the department of humanities and social sciences at Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi, India. A scholar of international reputation, Sahoo has previously held an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship at the University of Erfurt in Germany and a Charles Wallace Fellowship at Queen’s University in Belfast. He is the author of two monographs: Civil Society and Democratization in India (Routledge, 2013) and Pentecostalism and Politics of Conversion in India (Cambridge University Press, 2018).

During his time at Candler, Sahoo will conduct research to compare the experiences of Pentecostals in tribal communities in India with the experiences of Black Pentecostals in the United States. He is interested in the ways different cultural contexts matter for the lived religion of people who identify as Pentecostal. He pays particular attention to different configurations of religion, the state, and secularism, and how those differences shape the everyday social and political lives of Pentecostal believers who are marginalized in different ways.

Sahoo says he chose to pursue his research at Candler because of the school’s historic strengths in Black Church Studies, global Christianity, and sociology of religion. Candler faculty members Jonathan Calvillo, Robert Franklin, Marla Frederick, Teresa Fry Brown, Jehu Hanciles, Arun Jones, and Nichole Phillips all will be important conversation partners in his work, and the holdings of Pitts Theology Library are another significant draw. Additionally, the Atlanta area offers an exceptionally rich set of possibilities for on-the-ground research.

During his fellowship, Sahoo will also participate in Candler’s inaugural Summer Institute in Global Charismatic and Pentecostal Studies, which will be held on campus July 27-30, 2023. Sahoo can be contacted at sarbeswar.sahoo@emory.edu. For more information on the Summer Institute, please contact Associate Dean of Faculty Ted Smith at ted.smith@emory.edu.