Sunday, January 26, 2020

Formation of a Community: How Slaves Found Meaning in Haiti

Forrest Kentwell

This paper was written as kentwell's undergraduate senior thesis during his junior year at Muhlenberg College. Kentwell investigates in a purposefully fractured way how various religions practiced by West African peoples were transformed through groanful pain of the Middle Passage. The paper examines the ways in which the religion of Vodou was created by enslaved people in Haiti and begins to consider how the religion promoted a coherent community.

.“Memory, the Spirit of the Revolution, and Slave Religion: The Representation of the Haitian Revolution in Langston Hughes’s Emperor of Haiti,” Journal of Postcolonial Theory and Theology 4:1 (April 2013): 1-35    Celucien Joseph

Spirits, Slaves, and Memories in the African Diaspora.docx
Shackled Sentiments: Slaves, Spirits, and Memories in the African Diaspora", 2019
Eric J Montgomery

Book Chapter, from "Shackled Sentiments: Slaves, Spirits, and Memories in the African Diaspora". This chapter looks at "Mama Tchamba" (slave spirit worship) in Ghana, Togo, and Benin among the Ewes and Guin-Mina's with a focus on mimesis, morality, and personhood. With ethnographic stories from spirit-possession rituals and episodes of lineage and slave-ancestor divination
Publication Date: 2019
Publication Name: Shackled Sentiments: Slaves, Spirits, and Memories in the African Diaspora"



SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/01/my-2005-paper-gothic-capitalism-full.html
SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=CLR+JAMES
SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=BLACK+JACOBINS
SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=HAITI
SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=VOODOO

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From Slave Revolt to a Blood Pact with Satan: The Evangelical Rewriting of Haitian History
Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses, 2012

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 to the neo-evangelical rewriting of this iconic moment. It argues that the confluence of the bicentennial of the Haitian Revolution with the political contest around President Aristide’s policies, the growth of the neo-evangelical Spiritual Mapping movement, and of the Internet, produced a new form of mythmaking, in which neo-evangelicals re-signified key symbols of the event—an oath to a divine force, blood sacrifice, a tree, and group unity—from the mythical grammar of Haitian nationalism to that of neo-evangelical Christianity. In the many ironies of this clash between the political afterlife of a slave uprising with the political afterlife of biblical scripture, Haiti becomes a nation held in captivity, and Satan becomes the colonial power who must be overthrown.

Doi: 10.1177/0008429812441310
Issue: 2
Volume: 41
Page Numbers: 187-215
Publication Date: 2012
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Vodou and Protestantism, Faith and Survival: The Contest over the Spiritual Meaning of the 2010 Earthquake in Haiti

MANY FOLKS IN THE MEDIA AND ONLINE ARE REMEMBERING THIS DEVASTATING EARTHQUAKE THIS YEAR A DECADE LATER HAITI REMAINSNOT JUST A FAILED STATE BUT A FAILED NATION

Claire Payton

Abstract:
This article explores the spiritual dimension of the Haitian earth-quake of January 12, 2010, and argues that some of the quake’s most profound reverberations occurred at the level of the spirit. Drawing from oral histories with survivors of the disaster, it reveals that Protestantism and the Catholic-Vodou traditions, which are often seen as being diametrically opposed to each other, actually overlap and influence one another. The development of the Haiti Memory Project, an oral history initiative aimed at documenting the impact and implications of the earthquake among Haiti’s popular classes, is also described.Interviews for this project were conducted in Haitian Kreyòl, French, and English.This article features two embedded audio excerpts (one in French, the other in Haitian Kreyòl), as well as a hyperlink to supplementary audio excerpts, that allow readers to experience the multilingual nature of the project. Additionally,hyperlinks allowing online access to three full interviews from the collection appear at the end of the article

© The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Oral History Association.All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com

 SPEAKING OF PROTESTANTS
The Scapegoating of Haitian Vodou Religion: David Brooks’s (2010) Claim that “Voodoo” Is a “Progress-Resistant” Cultural Influence (2014)


Shortly after the catastrophic earthquake that crushed Port-au-Prince and the surrounding towns on January 12, 2010, The New York Times published an article in which columnist David Brooks claimed that “voodoo” is a “progress-resistant” cultural influence because it spreads the message that “life is capricious and planning futile.” Alongside Brooks, many authors promote similar views, especially Christians. I argue that Vodou does not negatively affect progress in Haiti. Rather, there are historical, linguistic, and governmental policies that limit progress. In reality, Vodou practitioners enhance progress in their attention to the planning and giving of ceremonies, in the hierarchical organization they establish in communities, in their ritual and language, and in the education imparted through inheritance, teaching, and initiation. The scapegoating of Vodou by Brooks and others perpetuates a racist colonial legacy, and it betrays an ignorance of the community and the abundant research about it.



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"A Salaam Alay: Remnants of West African Islam in Haitian Vodou"

Jon Bullock

It is not uncommon to encounter research in various fields that describes Caribbean music and culture using terms such as "globalization," "modernity," "cosmopolitanism," and "creolization." However, despite the near ubiquity of terms such as these in Caribbean studies, a small group of scholars have begun challenging the meaning and implications of these and similar ideological constructs that tend to reduce centuries’ worth of lived experiences, histories, and encounters to mere points along a single imaginary line. In this paper, I join scholars Stephen Palmié, Jocelyne Guilbault, Aisha Khan, and others in challenging descriptions of Caribbean culture as the unpredictable by-product of contact between black pagan Africans and white Christian Europeans. I examine these concepts in particular relation to scholarship on Haitian vodou that seems to ignore or downplay historical traces of West African Islam in contemporary vodou practices. I attempt to examine the realities of African Muslim slave experience as they apply to the music of Haitian vodou--not as a means of imposing traditional Islamic understandings on vodou practices, but rather as a means of challenging narrow understandings of concepts such as "blackness," "African," "Caribbean," and "Muslim."

Arabian Religion, Islam, and Haitian Vodou: The "Recent African Single-Origin Hypothesis" and the Comparison of World Religions (2016)

Vodou in the Haitian Experience: A Black Atlantic Perspective

Benjamin Hebblethwaite

Michel Weber

This chapter employs a comparative theological and historical approach to Arabian religion, Islam, and Haitian Vodou. This chapter explores possible examples of serial founder effects in the context of world religions. The comparative study of religions may contribute to the exploration of traces of an ancient African culture as manifested in various independent descendent religious traditions. Given the relatively recent migrations out of Africa, we theorize that pre-migratory African religious structures should occur in religions throughout the world. Pre-Islamic Arabian religion, one that has receded since the seventh century of the Common Era but still exists in jinn-cults in north Africa, and its legacies in the Qur'an and Islam (circa 610–632 CE), in addition to African Vodun and Haitian Vodou, serve as lenses through which we build a theory that links related macrocosmic religious structures to the recent African single-origin hypothesis.

More Info: Edited by Celucien L. Joseph and Nixon S. Cleophat
Publisher: Lexington Books
Publication Name: Vodou in the Haitian Experience: A Black Atlantic Perspective



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Myth, History, and Repetition: Andre Breton and Vodou
South Central Review, 2015


Issue: 1
Volume: 32
Publication Date: 2015
Publication Name: South Central Review

IN 1948, ANDRÉ BRETON WROTE AN ESSAY that discussed his first encounter a few years prior with the paintings of Hector Hyppolite at the Centred’ Art in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.Breton, noting Hyppolite’s role as a Vodou priest, described his strong impression that the artist had, “an important message to communicate, that he was the guardian of a secret.”Breton’swords express a certain contradictory sense about Hyppolite and his painting, in which the urgent, important message is simultaneously a mystery that must be safeguarded or even withheld. As this essay will examine, the same contradiction lies at the heart of Breton’s broader efforts to relate Haiti and its traditions to surrealism’s evolving politics,and it widely relates to ongoing ideological debates within the movement as it evolved in post-World War II Europe. The history and culture of Haiti and Vodou held a central position within Breton’s turn to myth and esotericism in the mid-1940s, and informed his creative projects on secret initiation and utopia as political tools of freedom and the imagination. Yet Breton generally demonstrated a reluctance to write or speak directly about Haiti and Vodou.


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SURREALISM, ATLANTIC HISTORY AND ANTI COLONIALISM
Great Impulses and New Paths: VVV, Surrealism, and the Black Atlantic
Revue Miranda, 2017


The 1940s exile in the United States of many European surrealists, including André Breton, is viewed as a moment in which the movement widened to encompass a broader range of artistic voices and visions. This expansion of the surrealist group is reflected in the short-lived but significant journal VVV, which included many contributions from artists of the Americas, and specifically from the Caribbean. It has been suggested that the editors of VVV were also in part inspired by the political efforts of African-Americans, yet the actual connections between the exiled surrealists and the artists, writers, and political activists of Harlem remained limited. This essay examines a moment of missed opportunity due to political repression during the Second World War, and also explores the strong creative alliances formed with writers and artists of Martinique and Cuba, as demonstrated in the pages of VVV.

Volume: 14
Publication Date: 2017
Publication Name: Revue Miranda
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“On the True Exercise of Witchcraft” in the Work of Remedios Varo
Surrealism, Occultism and Politics: In Search of the Marvellous, ed. Tessel Bauduin, Victoria Ferentiou and Daniel Zamani (Routledge, 2018). Studies in Surrealism (Series editor: Gavin Parkinson), , 2018

M. González Madrid

Among the published writings of the artist Remedios Varo there is one letter addressed to a “Dear Mr. Gardner”. Scholars of Varo’s work have long interpreted the letter as an amusement of the author’s, one of her many missives written to people she did not know. However, a recent study has identified this “Mr. Gardner” as Gerald B. Gardner, whose books Witchcraft Today and The Meaning of Witchcraft describe the rituals and beliefs of modern-day witches. In her letter, Varo describes how Miss Carrington “was kind enough” to translate the book for her, and that it had prompted her “great interest”. The identification of this character opens up new readings of Varo’s work.

Varo’s fascination with magic and hermeticism was cultivated together with other artists and writers of the Parisian surrealist group, particularly Benjamin Péret, Óscar Domínguez and Victor Brauner. In both her Parisian work and the work that made her famous in her Mexican exile, one may trace signs of her knowledge about magic, clairvoyance, dreams, automatic “magic dictation”, divination, astrology, alchemy and witchcraft. Moreover, Varo — and other female surrealist artists—were often described as sorceresses , in keeping with the masculine surrealist tradition which, based on Michelet’s La Sorcière, figured the witch as a woman who was wise, rebellious, enigmatic… and beautiful.

Reconfiguring the Surrealist Gaze: Remedios Varo’s Images of Women

INÉS FERRERO CÁNDENAS

Universidad de Guanajuato, México

 Abstract

 A large number of surrealist theorizations were devoted to defining the role woman played in the creative process, where she held a polarized position. Within such theorizations the gaze held a key role. It was the gaze of the male poet, painter or photographer, his way of seeing and imagining femininity, which constructed the icon of the surrealist ‘feminine’. This article elucidates upon how Remedios Varo’s paintings revise both the surrealist gaze that sets out a concrete type of female identity and the woman who abandons herself to the (masculinist) cultural conceptualization of what she is. The article presents an analysis of several of Varo’s paintings that reflect upon the construction of ‘femininity’ through an allegorical dimension that makes it possible to understand Varo’s plastic images as a direct response to surrealist theorizations on women’s psyche, existence and images

Frida Kahlo, Remedios Varo, Leonora Carrington,and Leonor Fini: 
Feminist Lessons in Chimerism, Corporeality, Cuisine, and Craft.
Courtney Weida
What visions (and versions) of feminism and motherhood are revealed by
 four women artists in the psychologically-laden genre of surrealism?...
Review: Surreal Friends: Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo and Kati Horna. 
Pallant House Gallery, 19 June - 12 September 2010


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THE WWII COVERT WAR FOR OIL IN IRAN


The Failure of the German Intelligence Services, 1939-45


2014


A pioneering investigation into the secret world of wartime Persia (Iran), meticulously sourced and based on six years of extraordinarily wide and deep research in the German, British, and American archives. This study exposes the problems, pressures, and personalities among the competing German intelligence services that targeted Persia, and it describes the highly effective methods employed by the implacable Allied security forces that resisted them. It tells a riveting tale: there are parachutists, gold, guns, dynamite, double agents, mistresses, and Byzantine intrigues galore in this compelling historical narrative. At the same time, as a serious academic study and a penetrating analysis of catastrophic intelligence failure, Adrian O'Sullivan's book is a highly significant contribution to Second World War intelligence history. Available only by purchase or through your library.

Location: Basingstoke
More Info: ISBN 9781137427892
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Publication Date: Aug 1, 2014
Espionage and Counterintelligence in Occupied Persia (Iran): The Success of the Allied Secret Services, 1941-45

2015


Nominated for The 2016 Cundill Prize in Historical Literature. A companion to the pioneering Nazi Secret Warfare in Occupied Persia (Iran), which told of Germany's spectacular failure in the region, this carefully researched study of British, American, and Soviet success makes for fascinating reading. Espionage and Counterintelligence in Occupied Persia (Iran) introduces us to Allied and Axis spies, spycatchers, and spymasters and to the highly effective methods employed by regional security forces to safeguard the lines of communication, the Lend-Lease supply route from the Gulf to the Caspian, and the vital oilfields, pipelines, and refineries of Khuzistan from Nazi attack and indigenous sabotage. Of particular interest in this study of neglected operational narratives and key clandestine personalities is its lucid description and analysis of Anglo-American and Anglo-Soviet intelligence relations, as the three Allies moved inexorably towards postwar realignment and the Cold War. Available only by purchase or through your library.

Location: Basingstoke
More Info: ISBN 9781137555564
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Publication Date: Oct 8, 2015


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Black Mask (UAW/MF) was an anarchist affinity group started by artists & based in NYC in the late 60s. This "street gang with analysis" was famous for its direct action. All issues of their zines are now available here in PDF format: bit.ly/2Fg9FLs
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9:31 AM · Apr 25, 2018Twitter Web Client
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Trystes Cosmologiques: When Lévi-Strauss Met the Astrologers

Graham Douglas

In October 1969 the famous anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss gave an interview to the well-known French astrologers André Barbault and Dr Jean-Paul Nicola for the astrology magazine L'Astrologue. To the author's knowledge this interview has never been discussed in academic journals, and is here published for the first time in English translation. It is considered in the context of its time, and of the issues discussed: the Surrealist movement, which had an important influence on Lévi-Strauss's early work; the structure of the unconscious mind; and the question of causation in astrology. At the end of the interview Lévi-Strauss suggested a joint project with his interviewers to study the interpretations of serious astrologers as a way of understanding how their minds work. According to Dr Nicola, the suggestion was never developed because in his opinion there was no chance of getting astrologers to agree on how to go about it. In the last 20 years however, several theses have been devoted to similar projects.

 ANDRE BARBAULT PASSED ON THROUGH THE DUAT TO NUIT
OCTOBER 2019

Astrology : History of a Prediction by André Barbault - CURA


cura.free.fr › quinq


For a critical review of predictive astrology, see Jacques Reverchon: "Value of the Astrological Judgements and Forecasts", CURA, 2003. ... It is thus that the Saturn-Neptune cycle will become the primary terrain I explore. The twentieth issue of Cahiers Astrologiques (March-April 1949 ...


André Barbault — Wikipédia


https://fr.wikipedia.org › wiki › André_Barbault


Translate this page
André Barbault, né à Champignelles (Yonne) le 1 octobre 1921 et mort le 8 octobre 2019 à Labaroche (Haut-Rhin), est un astrologue français. Il a été à l'origine ...

André Barbault - At the Crossroads of Time | Articles - Lynn Bell


https://www.lynnbellastrology.com › articles › andre-barbault


by Lynn Bell. This article was published in 2018 and we are posting in memory of André Barbault who passed away this year. I remember my first encounter with ...

Mundane astrology master André Barbault... - The Astrological ...


https://www.facebook.com › AstrologicalJournal › posts › mundane-astrol...
Mundane astrology master André Barbault has passed away, age 98. And we have just lost Ed Tamplin. We shall remember both in The Astrological Journal....

André Barbault - Urania Trust


https://www.uraniatrust.org › celebrated-astrologers › andre-barbault
André Barbault was a prominent French astrologer and writer, the author of over 50 books. His special interest has been in Mundane astrology and how ...
The Reference in Astrology: 
The idea of Astroflash dates back to 1966 when an important product manager Mr. Roger Berthier, co-founder of the Euromarche supermarket chain, had the idea to offer to its customers their horoscope. André Barbault, the most famous French astrologer, author of numerous works, like the celebrated Zodiac Collection (Seuil) was contacted. After 8 months of teamwork with computer analysts, a first astrological product, placing side by side a psychological portrait and a long term calendar was born.Because of its initial success, they decided to market and sell the horoscope by mail-order . An advertising campaign started in 1967 and perfected by Publicis lasted until April 1968. Although the topics developed in the ads were inspired by extensive psychological analysis, their effectiveness remained mediocre.They soon discovered, however, that a press meeting was a means to attract a large number of customers. This was in May of 1968 - in a car-shop on the Champs Elysées: the "computer - astrologer" attracted the masses. The possibility to immediately obtain a personalized horoscope anonymously, and for a moderate price, proved to be conclusive.
The Astroflash Center opened its doors in September of 1968, being the first client to rent a space in the Galerie des Champs, located at 84, Avenue des Champs Elysées, in Paris: a place visited daily by thousands of people. Now the number of daily Astroflash customers is around 100 to 200. So a total of 70,000 people per year, not including mail orders.
Women come in first at around 62%.- Young people are the most interested ?- One customer out of every two is under 30.?- High income customers are outnumbered.?- Foreigners: 15 to 20%.Every social strata show an interest in Astroflash.??Famous figures coming from the Political, the Entertainment as well as the Sports World have had their horoscopes done by Astroflash. General de Gaulle's horoscope remains famous...
Since 1968, Astroflash has been creating new products and perfecting them, investing constantly, as well as translating the products in many different languages (French, English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, Greek, Lithuanian, Russian, and Danish).The range of horoscopes consist of essentially psychological portraits - with a special version for children. A search of affinities among partners (comparative birth charts) and long-term forecast horoscopes (6 month, solar returns).Astroflash also places a Map of the Heaven at astrologers, professionals or amateur's disposal.
Reasons for success are first the customer's satisfaction who comes from the quality of our studies: all without exception are conceptualized by two famous French astrologers: André Barbault and Jean-Pierre Nicola. Secondly, after having been stated, the elements taken into account are interpreted. The interpretation of the birth charts is made according to tradition - enriched by new elements of modern psychology.
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