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Selected Works

Religion

Elizabeth McAlister

Articles 1 - 30 of 43

Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

The Militarization Of Prayer In America: White And Native American Spiritual Warfare, Elizabeth Mcalister Dec 2015

The Militarization Of Prayer In America: White And Native American Spiritual Warfare, Elizabeth Mcalister

Elizabeth McAlister

This article examines how militarism has come to be one of the generative forces of the prayer practices of millions of Christians across the globe. To understand this process, I focus on the articulation between militarization and aggressive forms of prayer, especially the evangelical warfare prayer developed by North Americans since the 1980s. Against the backdrop of the rise in military spending and neoliberal economic policies, spiritual warfare evangelicals have taken on the project of defending the United States on the “spiritual” plane. They have elaborated a complex theology and prayer practice with a highly militarized discourse and set of …

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The Militarization Of Prayer In America: White And Native American Spiritual Warfare, Elizabeth Mcalister Nov 2015

The Militarization Of Prayer In America: White And Native American Spiritual Warfare, Elizabeth Mcalister

Elizabeth McAlister

This article examines how militarism has come to be one of the generative forces of the prayer practices of millions of Christians across the globe. To understand this process, I focus on the articulation between militarization and aggressive forms of prayer, especially the evangelical warfare prayer developed by North Americans since the 1980s. Against the backdrop of the rise in military spending and neoliberal economic policies, spiritual warfare evangelicals have taken on the project of defending the United States on the “spiritual” plane. They have elaborated a complex theology and prayer practice with a highly militarized discourse and set of …

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The Color Of Christ In Haiti, Elizabeth Mcalister Dec 2013

The Color Of Christ In Haiti, Elizabeth Mcalister

Elizabeth McAlister

Haiti is an officially Roman Catholic country, and the popular religion
of Vodou incorporates many Catholic elements. Why, then, is Jesus
Christ relatively deemphasized in both traditions, while Mary and
the countless saints and spirits have a greater presence in the religious
lives of most Haitians? This article delves into the Roman Catholic
and Kongolese Catholic history of Haiti to explore why Jesus Christ
is a relatively remote figure and why he is represented as white in a
Black-majority country.

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Le Festival Rara En Haiti: Travail Religieux Et Divertissement Public En Temps D'Insécurite Et De Troubles, Elizabeth Mcalister Dec 2013

Le Festival Rara En Haiti: Travail Religieux Et Divertissement Public En Temps D'Insécurite Et De Troubles, Elizabeth Mcalister

Elizabeth McAlister

Le Rara est un festival annuel Haitien qui est religieux et carnivalesque.

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Humanitarian Adhocracy, Transnational New Apostolic Missions, And Evangelical Anti-Dependency In A Haitian Refugee Camp, Elizabeth Mcalister Apr 2013

Humanitarian Adhocracy, Transnational New Apostolic Missions, And Evangelical Anti-Dependency In A Haitian Refugee Camp, Elizabeth Mcalister

Elizabeth McAlister

This article addresses religious responses to disaster by examining how one network of conservative evangelical Christians reacted to the Haiti earthquake and the humanitarian relief that followed. The charismatic Christian New Apostolic Reformation (or Spiritual Mapping movement) is a transnational network that created the conditions for post-earthquake, internally displaced Haitians to arrive at two positions that might seem contradictory. On one hand, Pentecostal Haitian refugees used the movement’s conservative, right-wing theology to develop a punitive theodicy of the quake as God’s punishment of a sinful nation. On the other hand, rather than resign themselves to victimhood and passivity, their strict …

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Soundscapes Of Disaster And Humanitarianism: Survival Singing, Relief Telethons, And The Haiti Earthquake, Elizabeth Mcalister Oct 2012

Soundscapes Of Disaster And Humanitarianism: Survival Singing, Relief Telethons, And The Haiti Earthquake, Elizabeth Mcalister

Elizabeth McAlister

This essay first listens, on one hand, to music made by Haitians, for Haitians, close to the epicenter, in the direct aftermath of the Haiti 2010 earthquake. On the other hand, it considers music made by (mostly) North Americans for (mostly) other Americans, in telethon performances far away in New York and Los Angeles and London, weeks after the event. I argue that Haitians used music, and particularly religious singing, self-reflexively, in a culturally patterned way, to orient themselves in time and space, and to construct a frame of meaning in which to understand and act in the devastated Haitian …

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Slaves, Cannibals, And Infected Hyper-Whites: The Race And Religion Of Zombies, Elizabeth Mcalister Dec 2011

Slaves, Cannibals, And Infected Hyper-Whites: The Race And Religion Of Zombies, Elizabeth Mcalister

Elizabeth McAlister

The first decade of the new millennium saw renewed interest in popular culture featuring zombies. This essay shows that a comparative analysis of nightmares can be a productive method for analyzing salient themes in the imaginative products and practices of cultures in close contact. It is argued that zombies, as the first modern monster, are embedded in a set of deeply symbolic structures that are a matter of religious thought. The author draws from her ethnographic work in Haiti to argue that the zonbi is at once part of the mystical arts that developed there since the colonial period, and …

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From Slave Revolt To A Blood Pact With Satan: The Evangelical Rewriting Of Haitian History, Elizabeth Mcalister Dec 2011

From Slave Revolt To A Blood Pact With Satan: The Evangelical Rewriting Of Haitian History, Elizabeth Mcalister

Elizabeth McAlister

Enslaved Africans and Creoles in the French colony of Saint-Domingue are said to have gathered at a nighttime meeting at a place called Bois Caïman in what was both political rally and religious ceremony, weeks before the Haitian Revolution in 1791. The slave ceremony is known in Haitian history as a religio-political event and used frequently as a source of inspiration by nationalists, but in the 1990s, neo-evangelicals rewrote the story of the famous ceremony as a ‘‘blood pact with Satan.’’ This essay traces the social links and biblical logics that gave rise first to the historical record, and then …

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En Haiti, La Musique Prend Le Pouvoir, Elizabeth Mcalister Apr 2011

En Haiti, La Musique Prend Le Pouvoir, Elizabeth Mcalister

Elizabeth McAlister

No abstract provided.

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The Bad Boy Makes Good, Elizabeth Mcalister Apr 2011

The Bad Boy Makes Good, Elizabeth Mcalister

Elizabeth McAlister

What Michel "Sweet Micky" Martelly, Haiti's pop star turned president, learned from a lifetime in music.

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The Lucky Ones, Elizabeth Mcalister Feb 2011

The Lucky Ones, Elizabeth Mcalister

Elizabeth McAlister

No abstract provided.

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Listening For Geographies: Music As Sonic Compass Pointing Towards African And Christian Diasporic Horizons In The Caribbean, Elizabeth Mcalister Jan 2011

Listening For Geographies: Music As Sonic Compass Pointing Towards African And Christian Diasporic Horizons In The Caribbean, Elizabeth Mcalister

Elizabeth McAlister

Can musical sounds reveal history, or collective identity, or new notions of geography, in different ways than texts or migrating people themselves? This essay offers the idea that the sounds of music, with their capacity to index memories and associations, become sonic points on a cognitive compass that orients diasporic people in time and space. Whereas researchers often focus on the national diasporas produced through the recent shifts and flows of globalization, I illustrate some of the limits of the concept of national and ethnic diaspora to understand how Caribbean groups form networks and imagine themselves to be situated. This …

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A Crisis Of Faith And Meaning: Understanding The Haiti Earthquake, Elizabeth Mcalister Jan 2010

A Crisis Of Faith And Meaning: Understanding The Haiti Earthquake, Elizabeth Mcalister

Elizabeth McAlister

This radio segment explores how the three largest religious groups in Haiti, Catholics, Pentecostals, and practitioners of Vodou, are using their faith to interpret what happened. Hosted by Maureen Fiedler.

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Perspectives On Haiti's Earthquake, Elizabeth Mcalister Jan 2010

Perspectives On Haiti's Earthquake, Elizabeth Mcalister

Elizabeth McAlister

No abstract provided.

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Why Does Haiti Suffer So Much?, Elizabeth Mcalister Jan 2010

Why Does Haiti Suffer So Much?, Elizabeth Mcalister

Elizabeth McAlister

No abstract provided.

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Vodou's View Of The Quake, Elizabeth Mcalister Jan 2010

Vodou's View Of The Quake, Elizabeth Mcalister

Elizabeth McAlister

No abstract provided.

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Devil's Logic: Behind Pat Robertson's Haitian Blame Game, Elizabeth Mcalister Jan 2010

Devil's Logic: Behind Pat Robertson's Haitian Blame Game, Elizabeth Mcalister

Elizabeth McAlister

No abstract provided.

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Haiti And The Unseen World, Elizabeth Mcalister Dec 2009

Haiti And The Unseen World, Elizabeth Mcalister

Elizabeth McAlister

The religious imagery of Vodou points to the covert and often illegal world of deal making in the Haitian political and economic spheres.

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Religion In Post-Earthquake Haiti, Elizabeth Mcalister, Leslie Desmangles Dec 2009

Religion In Post-Earthquake Haiti, Elizabeth Mcalister, Leslie Desmangles

Elizabeth McAlister

No abstract provided.

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From The Rubble To The Telethon: Music, Religion, And The Haiti Quake, Elizabeth Mcalister Dec 2009

From The Rubble To The Telethon: Music, Religion, And The Haiti Quake, Elizabeth Mcalister

Elizabeth McAlister

No abstract provided.

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Poster Child, Elizabeth Mcalister, Lovely Nicolas Dec 2009

Poster Child, Elizabeth Mcalister, Lovely Nicolas

Elizabeth McAlister

Lovely Nicolas reflects on being chosen as a Unicef poster girl in a campaign to end child slavery in Haiti, in a conversation with her second mother, anthropologist Elizabeth McAlister

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Obama, Zombies, And Black Male Messiahs, Elizabeth Mcalister Sep 2009

Obama, Zombies, And Black Male Messiahs, Elizabeth Mcalister

Elizabeth McAlister

In a spate of recent films, a Black male messiah kills hyperwhite zombies; relatedly, Obama symbolized for many the hope for racial reckoning and equality.

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Globalization And The Religious Production Of Space, Elizabeth Mcalister Sep 2009

Globalization And The Religious Production Of Space, Elizabeth Mcalister

Elizabeth McAlister

No abstract provided.

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Roundtable: Haitian Music (Part 2) "What Does Revolution Sound Like?", Elizabeth Mcalister Jul 2009

Roundtable: Haitian Music (Part 2) "What Does Revolution Sound Like?", Elizabeth Mcalister

Elizabeth McAlister

Five writers continue their conversation about music and history in Haiti for The New Yorker.

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Sacred Stories From The Haitian Diaspora: A Collective Biography Of Seven Vodou Priestesses In New York City, Elizabeth Mcalister Jun 2009

Sacred Stories From The Haitian Diaspora: A Collective Biography Of Seven Vodou Priestesses In New York City, Elizabeth Mcalister

Elizabeth McAlister

No abstract provided.

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The Lucky Ones, Elizabeth Mcalister Jun 2009

The Lucky Ones, Elizabeth Mcalister

Elizabeth McAlister

No abstract provided.

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The Madonna Of 115th Street Revisited: Vodou And Haitian Catholicism In The Age Of Transnationalism, Elizabeth Mcalister Jun 2009

The Madonna Of 115th Street Revisited: Vodou And Haitian Catholicism In The Age Of Transnationalism, Elizabeth Mcalister

Elizabeth McAlister

No abstract provided.

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A Sorcerer's Bottle: The Visual Art Of Magic In Haiti, Elizabeth Mcalister Jun 2009

A Sorcerer's Bottle: The Visual Art Of Magic In Haiti, Elizabeth Mcalister

Elizabeth McAlister

No abstract provided.

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Love, Sex, And Gender Embodied: The Spirits Of Hatian Vodou, Elizabeth Mcalister Jun 2009

Love, Sex, And Gender Embodied: The Spirits Of Hatian Vodou, Elizabeth Mcalister

Elizabeth McAlister

No abstract provided.

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The Rite Of Baptism In Haitian Vodou, Elizabeth Mcalister Jun 2009

The Rite Of Baptism In Haitian Vodou, Elizabeth Mcalister

Elizabeth McAlister

No abstract provided.

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