The Lived Theology and
Community Building Workgroup
Manuel Vasquez
Associate Professor of Religion (University of Florida). B.A (Georgetown University); M.A. (Temple University) Ph.D. Religion and Social Sciences (Temple University).
Born in El Salvador, Manuel Vasquez attended high school under the Jesuits who were at the forefront of post-Vatican II progressive Catholicism in Latin America. In particular, he was influenced by liberation theology and the experience of base Christian communities, which combined social analysis of economic inequalities and political repression with theological reflection. This concern for the link between religion and emancipatory politics continued through his college years and eventually led him to the subject of religion and society.
Professor Vasquez's research interests are in the intersection of religion, culture, and social change, particularly as it is experienced in Latin America and among U.S. Latino communities. He is the author of The Brazilian Popular Church and the Crisis of Modernity (Cambridge University Press, 1998), which received the 1998 American Academy of Religion award for excellence in the study of religion. Professor Vasquez is also co-editor and co-author of the forthcoming Christianity, Social Change, and Globalization in the Americas, to be published by Rutgers University Press in July 2001. In addition, he has published several articles in journals such as Sociology of Religion, Theory, Culture & Society, Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, and Religious Studies Reviews.
Professor Vasquez has received grants from the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Lilly, Rockefeller, and Mellon Foundations and has served as a member of the selection committee for the program on religion, immigration, and civic life at the Social Science Research Council. He has also been a visiting fellow at the Center for the Americas at Wesleyan University. He is currently working with Marie F. Marquardt on a book on religion, social theory, and globalization in the Americas.