An expert on the American evangelical relationship with God will discuss her scholarly work this week on the University of Colorado Boulder campus.

Tanya Luhrmann, Watkins University Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Stanford University, will speak on the “Local ‘Theory’ of Mind and Why it Matters” on Friday, Oct. 13, at 4 p.m. in Hale 230.

Luhrmann, a New York Times columnist and author of When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God, contends that people find evidence of God’s presence in mental events; that different practices of attending to mental events have identifiable consequences; and that different cultures and different theologies emphasize mind and mental process in distinctive ways.

Luhrmann will discuss the consequences for the way charismatic Christians experience God and the way those who meet criteria for schizophrenia experience psychosis in the United States, Accra and Chennai. The data suggest that one consequence of the different ways of representing mind and mental experience is that Americans have a harsher and less-spiritual experience of psychosis.

Luhrmann’s lecture is sponsored by the CU Boulder Department of Anthropology and co-sponsored by the Center for Media, Religion and Culture. For inquiries, contact carla.jones@colorado.edu.