a1584: McAlister book on Rara

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: P D Bellegarde-Smith <pbs@csd.uwm.edu>

Elizabeth McAlister, Rara!  Vodou, Power and Performance in Haiti and
its Diaspora.  Berkeley:  University of California Press, 2002.  Book
and CD.

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.

"This is a startling, stunning, and fascinating book about the blend
of music, religion, and politics in Haitian culture. McAlister's
mastery of many different ways of knowing makes this study an endless
source of  insight, intrigue, and inspiration. Rara! succeeds
magnificently as an  exploration into Rara rituals and Haitian music,
but it also presents
original and generative insights into every aspect of Haiti's past,
present, and future."--George Lipsitz, author of Dangerous Crossroads

  "A rare in-depth look at an extremely popular, yet often
misunderstood phenomenon. With this book and CD, Elizabeth McAlister,
an involved observer, makes an incalculable contribution to our
musical and cultural literature."--Edwidge Danticat, author of The
Farming of Bones: A Novel

The link to the book's page at the Publisher is:
http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9291.html


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Elizabeth McAlister, <underline>Rara!  Vodou, Power and Performance in
Haiti and its Diaspora</underline>.  Berkeley:  University of
California Press, 2002.  Book and CD.


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.


"This is a startling, stunning, and fascinating book about the blend of
music, religion, and politics in Haitian culture. McAlister's mastery
of many different ways of knowing makes this study an endless source of
 insight, intrigue, and inspiration. Rara! succeeds magnificently as an
 exploration into Rara rituals and Haitian music, but it also presents

original and generative insights into every aspect of Haiti's past,
present, and future."--George Lipsitz, author of Dangerous Crossroads


 "A rare in-depth look at an extremely popular, yet often misunderstood
phenomenon. With this book and CD, Elizabeth McAlister, an involved
observer, makes an incalculable contribution to our musical and
cultural literature."--Edwidge Danticat, author of The Farming of
Bones: A Novel


The link to the book's page at the Publisher is:

http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9291.html



* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Elizabeth McAlister, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Department of Religion

Wesleyan University

Middletown, CT  06459-0029, USA

Tel:  (860) 685-2289

Fax:  (860) 685-2821

Internet home page: http://www.wesleyan.edu/religion/mcalister.htm

Rara book page:  http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9291.html


Faculty Research Fellow

Institute for the Advanced Study of Religion

Yale University

New Haven, CT  06520, USA


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