Elizabeth McAlister is Associate Professor of Religion, and also teaches in American
Studies and African American Studies. She earned her Ph.D. in 1995 from Yale in American
Studies with expertise in Afro-Caribbean religions. Her first book is Rara! Vodou, Power,
and Performance in Haiti and its Diaspora (University of California Press, 2002). Her
second book is a volume co-edited with Henry Goldschmidt that theorizes race and religion
as linked constructs: Race, Nation, and Religion in the Americas (Oxford University
Press, 2004). 

McAlister has published Rara, numerous articles and book chapters and produced three
compilations of Afro-Haitian religious music: Rhythms of Rapture (Smithsonian Folkways,
1995), Angels in the Mirror, and the CD Rara that accompanies her first book. 

McAlister is currently writing on musical artist Wyclef Jean, on Zombies in American
culture, and on the interactions between American evangelicals in the Spiritual Mapping
movement and the nation of Haiti. 

Professor McAlister curates a learning website on Haitian rara festivals at
http://rara.wesleyan.edu/ 

For further information her faculty website is http://emcalister.faculty.wesleyan.edu/

Popular Press

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The Bad Boy Makes Good, Foreign Policy (2011)

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

 

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Perspectives on Haiti's Earthquake, New York Times (2010)
 

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Vodou's View of the Quake, Washington Post (2010)
 

Online Scholarly Venues

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Haiti and the Unseen World, Social Science Research Council (2010)

The religious imagery of Vodou points to the covert and often illegal world of deal...

 

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Poster Child (with Lovely Nicolas) (2010)

Lovely Nicolas reflects on being chosen as a Unicef poster girl in a campaign to...

 

Radio

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A Crisis of Faith and Meaning: Understanding the Haiti Earthquake, Interfaith Voices (2010)

This radio segment explores how the three largest religious groups in Haiti, Catholics, Pentecostals, and...

 

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Music and the Story of Haiti, Afropop Worldwide (2007)

This 6-minute Afropop Worldwide radio essay explores how music formed history and identity in Haiti,...

 

Chapters in Edited Volumes

Listening for Geographies: Music as Sonic Compass Pointing Towards African and Christian Diasporic Horizons in the Caribbean, Geographies of the Haitian Diaspora (2011)

Haitian religious music reveals that even groups with self-consciously diasporic identities premised on a national...

 
From the Rubble to the Telethon: Music, Religion, and the Haiti Quake, Haiti Rising: Haitian History, Culture and the Earthquake of 2010 (2010)
 
Religion in Post-Earthquake Haiti (with Leslie G. Desmangles), Haiti Rising: Haitian History, Culture and the Earthquake of 2010 (2010)
 

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Catholic, Vodou, and Protestant: Being Haitian, Becoming American (with Karen Richman), Immigration and Religion in America: Comparative and Historical Perspectives (2009)
 

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Rara as Popular Army: Hierarchy, Militarism, and Warfare, Perspectives on the Caribbean: A Reader in Culture, History, and Representation (2009)
 

Articles in Journals

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Globalization and the Religious Production of Space, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (2005)
 

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Teaching September 11th, The Council of Societies for the Study of Religion: Bulletin (2001)
 

Articles in French

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En Haiti, la musique prend le pouvoir, Slate Afrique (2011)
 

Books