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Dr Laura Premack

Formerly at Lancaster University

Laura Premack

Office Hours:

Fridays 10 am - 12 pm

Research overview

I work on religion, culture and politics in Africa and the Americas. My primary focus is global evangelicalism, particularly 20th and 21st century Pentecostal Christianity in Brazil and Nigeria.  

While I am trained as an historian, my research interests are fundamentally interdisciplinary and have as much to do with the present as the past. They include faith and modernity; health and healing; the supernatural in politics; race; Spiritism; globalization; and global and comparative methodologies. I am currently writing a book on spiritual warfare and national identity in Brazil, Nigeria, and the United States, the three most evangelical countries in the world.

In addition to my role in PPR, I am also an associate director of Lancaster University's Institute for Social Futures.

I write for both scholarly and general publications, and am particularly interested in sharing my work with the broader public.

Career Details

I joined the faculty of Lancaster University in March 2017, having previously held appointments at Keene State College in New Hampshire (2015-16) and Bowdoin College in Maine (2012-15). I have also held affiliations at the Department of History at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria and at the Institute of Social Sciences at the State University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.

I did my graduate work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (PhD, MA) and Harvard University (EdM) and my undergraduate work at Wesleyan University (BA). My research has taken me to four continents and has been supported by fellowships from the US Department of Education (Fulbright-Hays), the US Department of State (FLAS), the Gerda Henkel Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the University of North Carolina's Center for Global Initiatives, Institute for the Study of the Americas, and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.

Current Teaching

POLI 100, "Global Politics of Belief" component (Lent Term)

PPR 363/563 Media, Religion & Politics (Lent Term)

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