McAlister, Elizabeth (A.) 1963-

PERSONAL: Born 1963, in New York, NY. Education: Vassar College, B.A. (summa cum laude), 1985; Yale University, M.A. (African and Afro-American studies), 1990, M.A. (history), 1992, M.Phil., 1993, Ph.D., 1995.

ADDRESSES: Office—Department of Religion, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT 06459.

CAREER: Adelphi University, Garden City, NY, visiting lecturer, 1994-95; Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, postdoctoral fellow at Center for Historical Analysis, 1995-96; Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT, began as assistant professor, became associate professor of religion, 1996-. Yale University, New Haven, CT, visitor at Center for Global Migration, 1996-97; guest lecturer at universities and institutions, including Florida International University, Vassar College, Louisiana State University, New York University, New School University, Harvard University, and Bernard M. Baruch College of the City University of New York. Recording artist and record producer, including contributions to Rhythms of Rapture: Sacred Musics of Vodou, Smithsonian/Folkways, 1995; Angels in the Mirror: Vodou Music of Haiti, Ellipsis Arts, 1997; Africans in America: America's Journey through Slavery, Rycodisc, 1998; Music in Latin-American Culture: Regional Traditions, Schirmer Books, 1999; and Rara! Vodou, Power, and Performance in Haiti and Its Diaspora, 2002. Ethnographic field consultant for Mystic Lands (television documentary), The Learning Channel, 1995; guest on media programs, including Afropop Worldwide, National Public Radio, Under Fire (television series), Columbia Broadcasting System, and Cafe International, National Public Radio.

AWARDS, HONORS: Ford Foundation grant for Cuba, 1990; Henry Hart Rice fellowship for Haiti, Yale University, 1992-93.

WRITINGS:

Rara! Vodou, Power, and Performance in Haiti and Its Diaspora (with compact disc), University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 2002.

(Editor, with Henry Goldschmidt) Race, Nation, and Religion in the Americas, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2004.

Contributor to books, including Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou, edited by Donald J. Cosentino, Fowler Museum of Cultural History, University of California (Los Angeles, CA), 1995; Gatherings in Diaspora: Religious Communities and the New Immigration, edited by R. Stephen Warner, Temple University Press (Philadelphia, PA), 1998; Black Zion: African-American Religious Encounters with Judaism, edited by Yvonne Chireau and Nathaniel Deutch, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2000; Love, Gender, and Sexuality in the World Religions, edited by Nancy Martin and Joseph Runzo, Oxford Oneworld Press (Oxford, England), 2000; and Religions of the United States in Practice, edited by Colleen McDannell, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 2001. Contributor of articles, essays, and reviews to periodicals, including Journal of Caribbean Studies, Aperture, Faces: Magazine about People, Beat, and Journal of Haitian Studies. Translator of lyrics for recording notes, including Boukman Eksperyans, Libete Pran Pou Pran'l/Freedom Let's Grab It, Island Mano Records, 1995.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Transnational Pentecostalism: Spiritual Warfare at the Crossroads.

SIDELIGHTS: Elizabeth McAlister told CA: "Rara! Vodou, Power, and Performance in Haiti and Its Diaspora is the first full-length work to describe and analyze the parading religious musical festival called Rara, practiced by peasants and the urban poor in Haiti during Lent. A ritual with roots in plantation slavery that has continued throughout Haitian history, Rara grows out of the Afro-Haitian religious complex called Vodou, and is used to launch political criticism of local and national leaders. Rara is now performed in local gatherings and protest demonstrations by Haitians in diaspora, and has become a key performance style in the emerging transnational progressive rasin (roots) cultural movement. The book examines the recent uses Haitians are making of Rara performance, both in Haiti and in the United States.

"Rara! is an ethnography of Rara festivals throughout Haiti and in New York City. The work charts the performances, religious meanings, social organization, gender relations, and political uses of this popular festival. Specifically, the book explores how Rara festivals are grassroots performance events, unmediated by broadcast media, through which Haitians in a range of locations express and negotiate day-to-day relations of power under conditions of insecurity. Using the power harnessed from the spirits of Vodou and from collective performance, Rara participants broadcast coded points of view that have local, national, and transnational dimensions. This study reads both the religious and cultural expressions of Haitian disempowered communities and the popular political wind through the lyrics and messages of these popular grassroots-produced musical groups. The book comes with a compact disc featuring the lively, percussive music of Rara."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, June, 2003, Les Field, review of Rara! Vodou, Power, and Performance in Haiti and Its Diaspora, p. 367.

Notes, March, 2003, Rebecca S. Miller, review of Rara!, p. 626.

ONLINE

Wesleyan University Web site, http://www.wesleyan.edu/religion/ (October 26, 2004), "Elizabeth McAlister."