Hoenes del Pinal selected as Fulbright U.S. Scholar

Eric Hoenes del Pinal, assistant professor and undergraduate program director for the Department of Religious Studies in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, has been selected as a 2023-24 Fulbright U.S. Scholar for Guatemala.

Trained as a cultural and linguistic anthropologist, Hoenes del Pinal’s approach to the study of religion is strongly ethnographic with an emphasis on the role of language and non-verbal forms of communication in shaping human interaction.

He will use this award to finish his on-going research project about how Maya and Catholic ideas about the relationships between human beings, nature and the supernatural world are helping people in Guatemala make sense of and adapt to climate change.

This work builds on Hoenes del Pinal’s long-term ethnographic commitment to understanding the changing religious life worlds of indigenous Catholics in Guatemala and follows his recent book “Guarded by Two Jaguars: A Catholic Parish Divided by Language and Faith,” in which he examines the roles of language and non-verbal forms of communication in creating congregational differences between Q’eqchi’-Maya Mainstream and Charismatic Catholics.

Hoenes del Pinal joined UNC Charlotte as a full-time faculty member in 2013, after serving as an adjunct instructor for several years. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Boston University and a Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego.

Fulbright Scholar Awards are prestigious and competitive fellowships that provide unique opportunities for scholars to teach and conduct research abroad. Fulbright scholars play a critical role in U.S. public diplomacy, establishing long-term relationships between people and nations.