Josh Brahinsky
Biographic Data
| ID | 124974 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Josh Brahinsky |
| GIVEN NAMES | Josh |
| FAMILY NAME | Brahinsky |
| SIGNATURE | BRAHINSKY J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Stanford University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9128-2087 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 6 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 69 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 6 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Tongues of Fire
InTongues of Fire, anthropologist Joshua Brahinsky embarks on an 18-year journey into the mind-body practices of charismatic evangelicals—Christians known for their exuberant worship and the enigmatic practice of speaking in tongues. With nearly half a billion followers worldwide, this movement has profoundly shaped both spiritual and political landscapes. What compels believers to return to this practice day after day, year after year? How does …
The Spiral of Attention, Arousal, and Release
Buddhist Jhāna meditation and the Christian practice of speaking in tongues appear wildly distinct. These spiritual techniques differ in their ethical, theological, and historical frames and seem, from the outside, to produce markedly different states of consciousness—one a state of utter calm and the other of high emotional arousal. Yet, our phenomenological interviews with experienced practitioners in the USA found significant points of converg…
Missionary conversions
Missionary encounters stimulate cultural change, although not always in ways one might expect. Throughout the mid-twentieth century, among missionaries from the Assemblies of God (AG), the world's largest pentecostal group, encounters with postcolonial converts often generated "missionary conversions," which instead of converting the target population, animated individual experiences of change among the missionaries themselves which then resonate…
The effects of scale
This paper offers a critique of affect theory using the analytical concept of scale that is made concrete through an ethnography of Pentecostal Christianity and an exploration of current neuroscientific thinking. Affect theory is one recent form of a Western philosophical concern about the loss of agency in modernity, what I call "agency-anxiety." Affect theorists tend to privilege the sense of freedom gained by immediate and individual experienc…
Cultivating Discontinuity
Exploring missionary study at an Assemblies of God Bible college through ethnography and training manuals demonstrates systematic pedagogies that cultivate sensory capabilities encouraging yielding, opening to rupture, and constraint. Ritual theory and the Anthropology of Christianity shift analytic scales to include "cultivation," a "third term" enabling simultaneous apprehension and consolidating of the oppositions (experience-doctrine, revival…
Pentecostal Body Logics
Pentecostals put intensive study into bodies, texts, practices, and their interrelationships so as to effectively cultivate a sensory culture-sensorium-and invite authoritative religious experience. This ethnographic study follows a Pentecostal sensorium from its crucial institutionalization in early Assemblies of God practice to more contemporary manifestations at Bethany University and among the Promise Keepers. It traces the historical mutatio…
Pentecostal Body Logics
Pentecostals put intensive study into bodies, texts, practices, and their interrelationships so as to effectively cultivate a sensory culture-sensorium-and invite authoritative religious experience. This ethnographic study follows a Pentecostal sensorium from its crucial institutionalization in early Assemblies of God practice to more contemporary manifestations at Bethany University and among the Promise Keepers. It traces the historical mutatio…
Cultivating Discontinuity
Exploring missionary study at an Assemblies of God Bible college through ethnography and training manuals demonstrates systematic pedagogies that cultivate sensory capabilities encouraging yielding, opening to rupture, and constraint. Ritual theory and the Anthropology of Christianity shift analytic scales to include "cultivation," a "third term" enabling simultaneous apprehension and consolidating of the oppositions (experience-doctrine, revival…
Missionary conversions
Missionary encounters stimulate cultural change, although not always in ways one might expect. Throughout the mid-twentieth century, among missionaries from the Assemblies of God (AG), the world's largest pentecostal group, encounters with postcolonial converts often generated "missionary conversions," which instead of converting the target population, animated individual experiences of change among the missionaries themselves which then resonate…
The effects of scale
This paper offers a critique of affect theory using the analytical concept of scale that is made concrete through an ethnography of Pentecostal Christianity and an exploration of current neuroscientific thinking. Affect theory is one recent form of a Western philosophical concern about the loss of agency in modernity, what I call "agency-anxiety." Affect theorists tend to privilege the sense of freedom gained by immediate and individual experienc…
Pentecostal Body Logics
Pentecostals put intensive study into bodies, texts, practices, and their interrelationships so as to effectively cultivate a sensory culture-sensorium-and invite authoritative religious experience. This ethnographic study follows a Pentecostal sensorium from its crucial institutionalization in early Assemblies of God practice to more contemporary manifestations at Bethany University and among the Promise Keepers. It traces the historical mutatio…
Cultivating Discontinuity
Exploring missionary study at an Assemblies of God Bible college through ethnography and training manuals demonstrates systematic pedagogies that cultivate sensory capabilities encouraging yielding, opening to rupture, and constraint. Ritual theory and the Anthropology of Christianity shift analytic scales to include "cultivation," a "third term" enabling simultaneous apprehension and consolidating of the oppositions (experience-doctrine, revival…
The effects of scale
This paper offers a critique of affect theory using the analytical concept of scale that is made concrete through an ethnography of Pentecostal Christianity and an exploration of current neuroscientific thinking. Affect theory is one recent form of a Western philosophical concern about the loss of agency in modernity, what I call "agency-anxiety." Affect theorists tend to privilege the sense of freedom gained by immediate and individual experienc…
Missionary conversions
Missionary encounters stimulate cultural change, although not always in ways one might expect. Throughout the mid-twentieth century, among missionaries from the Assemblies of God (AG), the world's largest pentecostal group, encounters with postcolonial converts often generated "missionary conversions," which instead of converting the target population, animated individual experiences of change among the missionaries themselves which then resonate…
The Spiral of Attention, Arousal, and Release
Buddhist Jhāna meditation and the Christian practice of speaking in tongues appear wildly distinct. These spiritual techniques differ in their ethical, theological, and historical frames and seem, from the outside, to produce markedly different states of consciousness—one a state of utter calm and the other of high emotional arousal. Yet, our phenomenological interviews with experienced practitioners in the USA found significant points of converg…
Tongues of Fire
InTongues of Fire, anthropologist Joshua Brahinsky embarks on an 18-year journey into the mind-body practices of charismatic evangelicals—Christians known for their exuberant worship and the enigmatic practice of speaking in tongues. With nearly half a billion followers worldwide, this movement has profoundly shaped both spiritual and political landscapes. What compels believers to return to this practice day after day, year after year? How does …
Anthropological Studies and Insights (4 works) · Philosophy (4 works) · Sociology (4 works) · Anthropology (3 works) · Epistemology (3 works) · Philosophy (3 works) · Aesthetics (2 works) · Ethnography (2 works) · Law (2 works) · Law (2 works)