Elizabeth Mcalister
Biographic Data
| ID | 230915 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Elizabeth Mcalister |
| GIVEN NAMES | Elizabeth |
| FAMILY NAME | Mcalister |
| SIGNATURE | MCALISTER E |
| AFFILIATIONS | Wesleyan University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3823-4596 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 82 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1973 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Esoteric Practices: Of Secrecy, Resilience and Politics
The author reflects on the proposal for ‘Alternative Rationalities and Esoteric Practices from a Global Perspective’ by rethinking three sites of her recent fieldwork. These involved a ritual involving zombies in Haiti, an American evangelical Christian spiritual warfare training camp, and a paranormal investigation presentation at a Connecticut library. All lend themselves to new questions in view of the proposal at hand. Each group attempts to …
Field Notes On Queer Women's Haiti: Changing Rhythms Across Three Decades
The impulse to write this short piece is simple. It is to share a few stories from my own journey in hopes it will help somebody on their way. To recount some moments from recent history. To add a beat to the steadily changing rhythms that open the roads. To sing a little song of kouraj (encouragement
The militarization of prayer in America: White and Native American spiritual warfare
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 warf…
The Colors of Christ in the Diaspora of Africana Religions
Staccato trumpet blasts, a lively guitar, and a beating drum introduce Roberto Angleró's “Si Dios Fuera Negro.” The lyrics then wonder how the world would be different with a Black God. “Si Dios fuera negro,” Angleró and his band Tierra Negro exclaim, “todo cambiaría.” If God were Black, all would be different politically, culturally, socially, and religiously. There would be a Black president and a Black governor. Chalk would be Black; Leonardo …
Humanitarian Adhocracy, Transnational New Apostolic Missions, and Evangelical Anti-Dependency in a Haitian Refugee Camp
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 o…
Listening for Geographies: Music as Sonic Compass Pointing Toward African and Christian Diasporic Horizons in the Caribbean
I met my partner Haiti while I was doing field research on Vodou and music. At the time he was a sound tech for his sister's band, Boukman Eksperyans. We were introduced at the Rex Theater downtown Port-au-Prince, right on the stage, a few hours before the show. The band usually set up to a soundtrack of its own music or to Bob Marley and the Wailers pumped up to a volume I found uncomfortable but that the musicians loved. Loud music made the air…
From Slave Revolt to a Blood Pact with Satan: The Evangelical Rewriting of Haitian History
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 …
Soundscapes of Disaster and Humanitarianism: Survival Singing, Relief Telethons, and the Haiti Earthquake
Juxtaposing two audiospheres (the Haitian streets after the 2010 earthquake and the “Hope for Haiti Now” telethon), this essay brings together scholarship on the visuality of suffering with work on music and emotion in order to explore the links between singing and knowledge, between humanitarianism and culture in the Caribbean, and between the photojournalism of disaster and the musicology of the disaster telethon. Even as Haitians sang widely i…
Slaves, Cannibals, and Infected Hyper-Whites: The Race and Religion of Zombies
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 …
Globalization and the Religious Production of Space
Race, nation, and religion in the Americas
A collection of new essays exploring the complex and unstable articulations of race and religion. Drawing on original research, the authors investigate how race and religion have defined global relations, shaped the everyday lives of individuals and communities and how communities use religion to contest the power of racism
Amour, sexe et genre incarnés: Les esprits du vaudou haïtien
Comment la religion participe de la construction de la sexualité et du genre ? Elizabeth McAlister propose une analyse approfondie des racines religieuses des esprits du vaudou et comment celui-ci se confronte au catholicisme et aux conceptions dominantes. Si vous visitez un jour Haïti et avez la chance d’être invité à un office religieux appelé « dans »,Lire la suite
Rara: Vodou, Power, and Performance in Haiti and Its Diaspora
Rara is a vibrant annual street festival in Haiti, when followers of the Afro-Creole religion called Vodou march loudly into public space to take an active role in politics. Working deftly with highly original ethnographic material, Elizabeth McAlister shows how Rara bands harness the power of Vodou spirits and the recently dead to broadcast coded points of view with historical, gendered, and transnational dimensions
Rhythms of Rapture: Sacred Musics of Haitian Vodou
Rhythms of Rapture: Sacred Musics of Haitian Vodou
Rhythms of Rapture: Sacred Musics of Haitian Vodou
Soil for Social Change
Globalization and the Religious Production of Space
From Slave Revolt to a Blood Pact with Satan: The Evangelical Rewriting of Haitian History
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 …
The militarization of prayer in America: White and Native American spiritual warfare
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 warf…
Slaves, Cannibals, and Infected Hyper-Whites: The Race and Religion of Zombies
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 …
Soundscapes of Disaster and Humanitarianism: Survival Singing, Relief Telethons, and the Haiti Earthquake
Juxtaposing two audiospheres (the Haitian streets after the 2010 earthquake and the “Hope for Haiti Now” telethon), this essay brings together scholarship on the visuality of suffering with work on music and emotion in order to explore the links between singing and knowledge, between humanitarianism and culture in the Caribbean, and between the photojournalism of disaster and the musicology of the disaster telethon. Even as Haitians sang widely i…
Listening for Geographies: Music as Sonic Compass Pointing Toward African and Christian Diasporic Horizons in the Caribbean
I met my partner Haiti while I was doing field research on Vodou and music. At the time he was a sound tech for his sister's band, Boukman Eksperyans. We were introduced at the Rex Theater downtown Port-au-Prince, right on the stage, a few hours before the show. The band usually set up to a soundtrack of its own music or to Bob Marley and the Wailers pumped up to a volume I found uncomfortable but that the musicians loved. Loud music made the air…
Soil for Social Change
Rhythms of Rapture: Sacred Musics of Haitian Vodou
Rhythms of Rapture: Sacred Musics of Haitian Vodou
Rara: Vodou, Power, and Performance in Haiti and Its Diaspora
Rara is a vibrant annual street festival in Haiti, when followers of the Afro-Creole religion called Vodou march loudly into public space to take an active role in politics. Working deftly with highly original ethnographic material, Elizabeth McAlister shows how Rara bands harness the power of Vodou spirits and the recently dead to broadcast coded points of view with historical, gendered, and transnational dimensions
Rhythms of Rapture: Sacred Musics of Haitian Vodou
Race, nation, and religion in the Americas
A collection of new essays exploring the complex and unstable articulations of race and religion. Drawing on original research, the authors investigate how race and religion have defined global relations, shaped the everyday lives of individuals and communities and how communities use religion to contest the power of racism
Amour, sexe et genre incarnés: Les esprits du vaudou haïtien
Comment la religion participe de la construction de la sexualité et du genre ? Elizabeth McAlister propose une analyse approfondie des racines religieuses des esprits du vaudou et comment celui-ci se confronte au catholicisme et aux conceptions dominantes. Si vous visitez un jour Haïti et avez la chance d’être invité à un office religieux appelé « dans »,Lire la suite
Globalization and the Religious Production of Space
Listening for Geographies: Music as Sonic Compass Pointing Toward African and Christian Diasporic Horizons in the Caribbean
I met my partner Haiti while I was doing field research on Vodou and music. At the time he was a sound tech for his sister's band, Boukman Eksperyans. We were introduced at the Rex Theater downtown Port-au-Prince, right on the stage, a few hours before the show. The band usually set up to a soundtrack of its own music or to Bob Marley and the Wailers pumped up to a volume I found uncomfortable but that the musicians loved. Loud music made the air…
From Slave Revolt to a Blood Pact with Satan: The Evangelical Rewriting of Haitian History
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 …
Soundscapes of Disaster and Humanitarianism: Survival Singing, Relief Telethons, and the Haiti Earthquake
Juxtaposing two audiospheres (the Haitian streets after the 2010 earthquake and the “Hope for Haiti Now” telethon), this essay brings together scholarship on the visuality of suffering with work on music and emotion in order to explore the links between singing and knowledge, between humanitarianism and culture in the Caribbean, and between the photojournalism of disaster and the musicology of the disaster telethon. Even as Haitians sang widely i…
Slaves, Cannibals, and Infected Hyper-Whites: The Race and Religion of Zombies
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 …
Humanitarian Adhocracy, Transnational New Apostolic Missions, and Evangelical Anti-Dependency in a Haitian Refugee Camp
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 o…
The Colors of Christ in the Diaspora of Africana Religions
Staccato trumpet blasts, a lively guitar, and a beating drum introduce Roberto Angleró's “Si Dios Fuera Negro.” The lyrics then wonder how the world would be different with a Black God. “Si Dios fuera negro,” Angleró and his band Tierra Negro exclaim, “todo cambiaría.” If God were Black, all would be different politically, culturally, socially, and religiously. There would be a Black president and a Black governor. Chalk would be Black; Leonardo …
The militarization of prayer in America: White and Native American spiritual warfare
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 warf…
Field Notes On Queer Women's Haiti: Changing Rhythms Across Three Decades
The impulse to write this short piece is simple. It is to share a few stories from my own journey in hopes it will help somebody on their way. To recount some moments from recent history. To add a beat to the steadily changing rhythms that open the roads. To sing a little song of kouraj (encouragement
Esoteric Practices: Of Secrecy, Resilience and Politics
The author reflects on the proposal for ‘Alternative Rationalities and Esoteric Practices from a Global Perspective’ by rethinking three sites of her recent fieldwork. These involved a ritual involving zombies in Haiti, an American evangelical Christian spiritual warfare training camp, and a paranormal investigation presentation at a Connecticut library. All lend themselves to new questions in view of the proposal at hand. Each group attempts to …
Art (9 works) · Caribbean and African Literature and Culture (9 works) · History (8 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Literature (7 works) · Colonialism, slavery, and trade (6 works) · Law (6 works) · Political science (6 works) · History (5 works) · Philosophy (5 works)