Summer 2012 in Brazil
Instructor: Erin Moore
Dates: May 14 - June 9, 2012:  Trip includes tour of Brasilia, Spiritist healer in Brasilia, trip to waterfalls and a Portuguese slave town as well as the 1.5 weeks with John of God.  Optional tourist excursion to Rio afterwards from June 8-12th.

This 4-unit PWP course focuses on the performance of healing through classroom study and a two-week field course in Brazil.

All healing uses the power of the mind to engage the body to heal.  People everywhere get sick and all societies have developed practices, technologies and medicines to treat illness.  However, not all peoples understand sickness, healing, or even what it means to have a body in the same way.  We will look at the recruitment of healers, theatrical manipulation of powerful cultural symbols, and what gives these rituals their power.

Anthropologists gather their data through participant observation.  After we have a broader understanding of healing rituals around the globe, anthropologist and lawyer Professor Erin Moore will lead a group of 8 students to Abadiana, Brazil (1.5 hours drive from Brasilia) to visit the renowned spiritist healer John of God.  John of God channels 47 different entities for the purposes of healing patients from around the world.  After participating in his three-day rituals, we will talk to patients, his assistant mediums, local merchants, and law enforcement.

Who is this farmer/entrepreneur/healer who has an international clientele?  Is he a charlatan or a gifted medium?  What are the political and economic ramifications of John of God’s healing empire?  Is he practicing medicine without a license (also a law in Brazil)?  Does he heal through placebo or is there some other mechanism?  What is the active understanding of his healing mechanism by his patients?  Who are his patients and what do they believe?  What is his concept of the body/the spirit/the afterlife?  How do you judge effective treatment?  What is the field of anthropology and how do cultural anthropologists do their research?  Through a problem-based approach to learning students will research and write about some aspect of this healing community.   

See photos: http://dornsife.usc.edu/anth/html/undergradfund.html

Program Costs:

Tuition: $5680

Airfare: $1100-1400 (as of November 8, 2011)

Additional expenses: $1200*

Total: $7980-8280

*Additional expenses include estimated costs for accommodations, other fees, and personal expenses (which can vary greatly from student to student).

Funding is available through SURF, student undergraduate research fund.

For further information on this course, contact Dr. Erin Moore s at epm@usc.edu or an undergraduate advisor at 213.740.1900.