Michael Amoruso is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Occidental College. His research focuses on death, race, and movement in the United States and Latin America. His current book project, Moved by the Dead, forthcoming with the University of North Carolina Press, explores the intersection of these themes in the devotion to afflicted souls at the Chapel of the Afflicted and other sites in São Paulo. A study of religion in the city, the book locates the devotion within the shifting cultural geography of São Paulo to show how the practice figures into public struggles over historical representation in urban space.
