معرفی
Thomas J. Csordas is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, San Diego, where he also holds the Dr. James Y. Chan Presidential Chair in Global Health. He is the Founding Director of the Global Health Program and Director of the Global Health Institute, demonstrating leadership in interdisciplinary global health research. His work bridges anthropology, psychiatry, and religious studies, with a central focus on embodiment, lived experience, and healing.
His research interests include medical and psychological anthropology, global mental health, cultural phenomenology, embodiment, ritual healing, comparative religion, and the impact of globalization on social and mental wellbeing. He has conducted extensive ethnographic fieldwork among diverse populations, including Charismatic Catholics, Navajo Indians, adolescent psychiatric patients, Catholic exorcists in the U.S. and Italy, and asylum seekers on the U.S./Mexico border.
His recent scholarly output, as reflected in the latest publications, centers on themes of structural violence, migration, embodiment, religious healing, and the phenomenology of mental illness. Articles explore the lived experience of asylum seekers, indigenous healing in global mental health, and the sensory and somatic dimensions of religious treatment for addiction, indicating a sustained commitment to understanding the intersection of culture, body, and suffering.
Dr. Csordas has received significant research funding, including an NIH R01 grant for the Southwest Youth Experience of Psychiatric Treatment (SWYEPT) study, and leads the Tracing Asylum Seekers Experience and Trajectory (TASET) project. He has served as President of the Society for the Anthropology of Religion and Co-Editor of Ethos: Journal of the Society for Psychological Anthropology, reflecting his influence in the field.
He is actively involved in mentoring and collaborative research, particularly with Dr. Janis H. Jenkins. His lab is located in SSB 285 and 287 at UCSD, where he conducts research on embodiment and global health. He teaches graduate seminars on the body, meaning and healing, religion and globalization, and Native American health, shaping the next generation of anthropological thinkers.
