(Mis-)Translating Vodun: Africana Religious Cultures and the Politics of Interpretation

(Cross-listed as CST 118, AMER 118 and AFR 118.) A historical and comparative examination of the history of cultural contact between Vodun religious cultures and the Western world, with specific attention to issues of translation and interpretation in the study of West African Vodun, Haitian Vodou, and New Orleans Voodoo. Colonization and the construction of religious Others; the invention of civilization, the primitive, and the fetish; slavery, religion, and the construction of race; law and politics of religious criminality; the U.S. occupation of Haiti and the Western imagination of “voodoo”; and U.S. imperialism and the media. Formerly REL 118.