Todd Ramón Ochoa
دانشیار · African-inspired Societies and Religions in Latin America and the Caribbean
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hillمعرفی
Todd Ramón Ochoa is an Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He holds a Ph.D., M.Phil., and M.A. in Cultural Anthropology from Columbia University (2005, 1998, 1995) and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Michigan Ann Arbor (1992).
His research focuses on African-inspired societies and religions in Latin America and the Caribbean, particularly Cuba. Central themes include materiality, racialization, creolization, and hybridity, explored through critical ethnographic practice and contemporary theory. His seminal works include Society of the Dead (2010), examining Cuban-Kongo healing practices, and the forthcoming A Party for Lazarus (2020), detailing ancestral devotion in rural Cuba.
Teaching highlights include courses on religion and culture, creolization in the US-Mexico borderlands, and Black Atlantic perspectives. He was awarded a National Humanities Center Fellowship (2017-18) for his project on religious recombination in the Black Atlantic.
His fieldwork in Cuba since 1999 has produced influential ethnographies addressing materiality, cultural recombination, and the interplay of theory and practice in religious studies.
