Vodou and Films: Some Recommendations

A friend of mine who will be teaching a class on Vodou and Films in the fall semester 2022 has asked me for some recommendations. I would like to share my suggestions with you, Good people!

I. Vodou Anthology/ies

There are only two anthologies/readers in the English language on Haitian Vodou: the influential two volumes Patrick Bellegarde-Smith and Claudine Smith coedited (Arguably, this is “The Classic Anthology” on Haitian Vodou), and the two-volume texts that Nixon Cleophat and I coedited. Both volumes were published in 2016 by Lexington Books; here are the titles:

• Vodou in Haitian Memory: The Idea and Representation of Vodou in Haitian Imagination by Celucien L. Joseph by Nixon S. Cleophat
• Vodou in the Haitian Experience: A Black Atlantic Perspective by Celucien L. Joseph and Nixon S. Cleophat

***You would appreciate the gender and performative components, as well as the intellectual and historical aspects of my books.

II. Films/Documentaries on Vodou:

The films and documentaries that I recommend below were done both in Haiti and Africa; in that way, you would gain a valuable perspective, that is, the African and Haitian perspective on Vodou.

• “Divine Horsemen – The Living Gods of Haiti” (51 minutes: 1993) directed by Maya Deren, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Tla44ZDyZs
“The Living Gods of Haiti is a documentary film about dance and possession in Haitian vodou that was shot by experimental filmmaker Maya Deren between 1947 and 1952 and edited and completed by Deren’s third husband Teiji Ito and his wife Cherel.”
• “Voodoo Mounted by the gods” (1 hr 12:2012): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bLJqMANCI0&t=1334s
“A documentary directed by famous switzerland photographer Alberto Venzago. He has been shooting for 10 years a child who was chosen to become a voodoo priest. Mighty and sublime film produced by Wim Wenders, written by Kit Hopkins and music by Jochen Schmidt-Hambrock.”
• “Voodoo (full documentary)” by New Atlantis Full Documentaries (53:03 minutes:2013) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtKpkm7xYi8
• “Voodoo Mysteries | Full Documentary” by Planet Doc Full Documentaries (52: 05 minutes: 2014), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFzbDDnaZWo
• “Voodoo in Togo” by African History Documentary (35:14 minutes: 2019), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibJ_bPb4jOQ

***

• Reza Aslan, BELIEVER (CNN)- episode on Vodou
• WHITE ZOMBIE (1932)
• THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW (1988)

III. Top Books on Haitian Vodou in the English Language

Below, I recommend some of the most important books (19 books in total), written in the English language, that explore Haitian Vodou in its complexity, as well as its multidimensional and interdisciplinary aspects.

1. Voodoo and Politics in Haiti by Michel S. Laguerre
2. Faces of the Gods: Vodou and Roman Catholicism in Haiti by Leslie G. Desmangles
3. Secrets of Voodoo by Milo Rigaud
4. Haitian Vodou: Spirit, Myth, and Reality edited by Patrick Bellegarde-Smith and Claudine Michel
5. Vodou in Haitian Life and Culture: Invisible Powers edited by Patrick Bellegarde-Smith and Claudine Michel
6. Vodou in Haitian Memory: The Idea and Representation of Vodou in Haitian Imagination edited by Celucien L. Joseph by Nixon S. Cleophat
7. Vodou in the Haitian Experience: A Black Atlantic Perspective edited by Celucien L. Joseph and Nixon S. Cleophat
8. Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti by Maya Deren and Joseph Campbell
9. The Spirits and the Law: Vodou and Power in Haiti by Kate Ramsey
10. Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn by Karen McCarthy Brown and Claudine Michel
11. Revolutionary Change and Democratic Religion: Christianity, Vodou, and Secularism by Celucien L. Joseph
12. Rara! Vodou, Power, and Performance in Haiti and Its Diaspora by Elizabeth McAlister
13. Vodou Nation: Haitian Art Music and Cultural Nationalism by Michael Largey
14. Spirit Possession in French, Haitian, and Vodou Thought: An Intellectual History by Alessandra Benedicty-Kokken
15. A Transatlantic History of Haitian Vodou: Rasin Figuier, Rasin Bwa Kayiman, and the Rada and Gede Rites by Benjamin Hebblethwaite
16. Nan Domi: An Initiate’s Journey into Haitian Vodou”by Mimerose Beaubrun
17. Vodou Songs in Haitian Creole and English by Benjamin Hebblethwaite
18. Haiti, History, and the Gods by Joan Dayan
19. The Vodou Ethic and the Spirit of Communism: The Practical Consciousness of the African People of Haiti by Paul Mocombe
20. Dancing Spirits: Rhythms and Rituals of Haitian Vodun by Gerdès Fleurant
21. The Drums of Vodou, by Lois Wilcken with Frisner Augustin

In my opinion , “Nan Domi: An Initiate’s Journey into Haitian Vodou” by Mimerose Beaubrun is one of the top books on the deep spiritual dimensions of Haitian Vodou.

“God and Women in Genesis 1:26-28:
Rereading the Creation Narrative from a Feminist Perspective”

Genesis 1:26-28
26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

The Hebrew word in Genesis 1:26 and 27 that translates as “mankind” in the English language refers, in the most literal sense, to both genders: male and female—what some Hebrew scholars and theologians have called the “natural genders,” and for others the “natural sexes.” Thus, as many students of Scripture already know, mankind should be best rendered as humanity or human beings in English. I do, however, would like to consider a simple question: what if we were to read these three verses of Genesis 1 (26-28) from a feminist and womanist perspective. Let us consider these additional pertinent questions:

1. What difference the feminist lens would make in our understanding of the relationships between men and women in the world?
2. Would a feminist rereading of this passage lead to a rejection to the traditional gender hierarchy?
3. Would a feminist rereading of this text lead to a complementarian perspective about gender roles and functions?
4. How shall this rereading change the way we “define” women and “understand” their roles, functions, and contributions in the world?
5. What if we were to replace each reference to “mankind/humankind/human beings” in these texts with the word “women”?
6. What if we were to interpret each (textual) allusion or echo to “mankind/human/human beings” in this passage as a reference to women?

*** In the Hebrew text, the word is not “women” (plural) but “woman” (singular). For the sake of rhetorical force and linguistic reconceptualization, I would like to use the plurality (women) instead of the singularity (woman) in my analysis below. Let us try this interpretive exercise below:

• God created women in his image and likeness.
• God gave women power and ability to rule over the fish in the seas (natural sciences).
• God gave women power and ability to rule over the birds in the sky (natural sciences).
• God gave women power and ability to rule over the livestock.
• God gave women power and ability to rule over all the wild animals.
• God gave women power and ability to rule over all the creatures that move along the ground.
• God blessed women, and God spoke to “the woman” directly and clearly.
• God gave women power and ability to increase in number.
• God gave women power and ability to subdue the earth.
• To be created in the image of God is to have freedom, critical thinking, imagination, and intelligence, as well as resistance to struggle against all forces of human oppression and evil.
• Hence, by creating women in his own image, God gave women freedom, critical thinking, imagination, and intelligence. God also equipped women to reject and fight against all forms of human oppression, abuse, and evil.
• By creating women in his own image, God ordained women to be his representative in the world, to be his agents in the cosmos, and to reflect his communicable qualities, virtues, and attributes in the universe.

In conclusion, from creation, God has empowered women by giving them natural abilities, intrinsic freedom, natural authority, and natural intelligence to create order in society; to administer laws and justice in society; to exercise dominion and control over the natural world; to make the world liveable and functional; to lead and rule over all things in the world; and to create harmony and coherence in the cosmos. According to this text, the power of woman encompasses everything in the world because God has created her to be his agent or ambassador in the world. In other words, the art of governance, administration, and leadership are divine gifts and abilities extended to the woman gender. Literally and originally, I am arguing that the passage of Genesis 1:26-28, both directly and indirectly, suggests that God has called women to govern, administer, and to lead, as well as to perform different roles and functions in both public and private places, such as at home, in society, in government offices, in sacred spaces such as ecclesiastical settings (in churches).

I was the special guest of the wonderful and tireless Dr. Maggie Remy’s “Sak Pase,” a TV program of the St Lucie County Schools designed to reach the Haitian Community in the Treasure Coast. Dr. Remy and I talked about the importance of education and particularly the “Promise” Program which Indian River State College (Fort Pierce, Florida) just launched to provide free College tuition to High school students in the area.

**This informative program is especially helpful for Haitian parents and High school students.

“Brief Notes on Haitian Atheism, Radicalism, and Marxism”“Brief Notes on Haitian Atheism, Radicalism, and Marxism”

***This post is not an attack on Mr. Kerby’s atheism or philosophical worldview! However, as a Haitian intellectual historian and religious scholar who has published prolifically on the history of ideas in Haiti and the experience of the Haitian people with religion, I seek to bring some clarification on the subject matter.

Haiti has a strong (theistic) humanist tradition, which can be traced in the early nineteenth century, such as in the ideas and writings, for example, of Haitian public intellectual Pompée Valentin Vastey. Haiti, nonetheless, does not have an atheistic tradition or a non-theistic humanist tradition.

Ismael de Kerby, the President of “Society of Atheists of Haiti” (“President de la Société des Athées d’Haiti”), is quite an articulate Haitian thinker and well-versed in the history of ideas of Western atheism, but he is ignorant of the history of ideas in Haiti and the history of Haitian radicalism. In his superb interview on Blocus, he referenced the ideas of Jacques Roumain, one of the most influential Haitian thinkers in the first half of the twentieth-century, to promote his philosophy and worldview of Haitian theism. In 1934 when the American military forces left Haiti, Jacques Roumain founded the Haitian Communist Party (Le Parti Communiste Haïtien: PCH) and spread enthusiastically the Gospel of Marxism and Communism as promising future possibilities in the Haitian society. Roumain had exercised a profound intellectual influence on the emerging Haitian intellectuals, including Marxist thinkers and communist-militants René Depestre, Jacques-Stéphen Alexis, Christian Beaulieu, Max Lélio Hudicourt, etc. In 1932, both Roumain and Beaulieu travelled to New York to forge alliance with the American Communist Party and to find resources to help them launch PCH in Haiti in 1934. Hudicourt, for example, was the leader of the Parti Socialiste Populaire (Haiti) (PSP). Gérald Bloncourt helped launch a journal, “La Ruche” (“The Beehive”) in Haiti and published many Marxist-themed pieces for the Haitian public. He also worked for the Parisian Communist Party newspaper called L’Humanité (“Humanity”).

Haitian radicalism is not a substitute for Haitian atheism or non-theistic Humanism. For two recent and brilliant texts on the history of Marxism in Haiti and Haitian radicalism in the twentieth-century, see Jean-jacques Cadet, “Le Marxisme Haïtien : Marxisme et Anticolonialisme en Haïti (1946-1986)” (2020), “Marxisme et aliénation. Cinq études sur le marxisme haïtien” (2021), and Yves Dorestal, “Jacques Roumain (1907-1944) : un communiste haïtien : Le marxisme de Roumain ou le commencement du marxisme en Haïti” (2015). Additional readings include Matthew J. Smith’s grounbreaking book on Haitian radicalism and Marxism, “Red & Black in Haiti: Radicalism, Conflict, and Political Change, 1934-1957” (2009); Leslie Péan’s helpful essay, “Du côté de la liberté – Christian Beaulieu,” published in Le Petit Samedi Soir, no. 320, 12-18 (Janvier 1980); René Depestre, “Cahier d’un art de vivre: Journal de Cuba, 1964-1978” (2020) ; Wilson Decembre, “Vitalité et spiritualité: Apologie du rapport-au-monde afro-haïtien” (2009), and “Cosmopoétique : La symbolique païenne dans l’œuvre de René Depestre”(2022).

I am arguing that one cannot ground the birth of Haitian atheism in the ideas and writing of Jacques-Roumain. Although Jacques Roumain was a classic Marxist and radical Communist, he was not an atheist nor a non-theistic humanist. (Many contemporary Haitian intellectuals today are exploiting the ideas of Jacques Roumain to promote a non-theistic philosophy in the Haitian culture. This is a profound misreading of Roumain and his works! I have dealt with the religious sensibilities and intellectual, radical, and philosophical ideas of Jacques Roumain in a BIG book called “Thinking in Public: Faith, Secular Humanism, and Development in Jacques Roumain [496 pages; published in 2017]).

Further, some of the most brilliant and influential Haitian thinkers including Pompée Valentin Vastey, Thomas Madiou, Benito Sylvain, Joseph Antenor Firmin, Demesvar Delorme, Louis Joseph Janvier, Jean Price-Mars, Jacques Roumain, Jacques-Stephen Alexis, Marie-Vieux Chauvet and many others were not “atheists;” rather, these thinkers and many others in the twentieth-century embraced a form of “theistic humanism” and “soft secularism.” These Haitian thinkers (Vastey, Firmin, Roumain, Price-Mars, Alexis, Vieux) did not commit themselves to any religion, creed, or dogma—including Haitian Catholicism, Haitian Protestantism, Haitian Vodou, etc.—nor did they identify themselves specifically with a particular religious tradition or system. For example, Roumain, Price-Mars, and Alexis wrote about Haitian Vodou and even defended its significance in Haitian history and the Haitian society. Yet they were not Vodouizan or Vodouists, in the very sense of the word. All of them were brought in Christian families—both Catholicism and Protestantism—yet they were not “Christians.”

In summary, the Haitian thinkers referenced above did not set an intellectual foundation to promote contemporary Haitian atheism, nor should their writings and ideas be used or misused to counter theism. Those who are advocates of Haitian atheism today need to reshape their arguments and engage in more careful exegetical reading or critical analysis of the ideas these Haitian thinkers sustained in regard to the intersections of faith, humanism, and the Haitian culture. By any means am I saying that there is not an intellectual, humanist, and Marxist foundation for Haitian atheism based on the writings and ideas of Haitian thinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. By contrast, I am arguing that contemporary Haitian atheists should not reference the writings and ideas of the referenced thinkers, especially Jacques Roumain, the most radical thinker in Haitian history, to promote the philosophy and worldview of atheism. Haiti has produced a catalogue of ardent theistic humanists, a tradition they inherited from European humanism, especially France’s humanist culture.

The Eleven Major Branches of Haitian Studies:

1. Haitian Revolution Scholarship
2. The Haitian Religion (Vodou scholarship)
3. Haitian Literature and Literacy Criticism
4. Haitian Political History
5. Haitian Diplomatic Relations (i.e., France, England, U.S.A., Canada)
6. Haitian (Visual) Art and Cinematography
7. Haitian Language/Linguistics (Kreyòl Sudies)
8. Haitian Feminist and Women’s Scholarship
9. Haitian Catholic and Protestant Studies
10. Haitian Ethnology and Sociology
11. Haitian Health Studies

At the Crossroad: African American Studies and Me!

I came to do research and write about Haitian Studies and the African Diaspora through African American Studies. Let me briefly explain this interesting anecdote. When I was working on my M.A. degree at the University of Louisville (KY), I took two courses from the Department of Pan-African Studies at the University of Louisville that would change my entire intellectual career. The first course was on the “African Diaspora” and the second one on how to teach in the Inner City; it was a seminar designed for future teachers who are interested in working with marginalized and underperforming students. Two those courses were a life-transforming event. Behold, I became an enlightened man! I wanted to do more study and engage in more research on African American history and the Black Experience in the United States.

When I applied for doctoral studies at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD), I was admitted to the PhD program in History. I spent a year as a doctoral student in History; then, I switched to major in Literary Studies, which would allow me to do research both in Black Literature and Black History. Hence, my fields of concentration and comprehensive (doctoral) examinations were in African American Intellectual History, African American Literature, and Caribbean Literature and Culture. I authored a literary-historical dissertation on three coeval literary and historical movements in the African Diaspora: the Harlem Renaissance (Harlem, New York), the Negritude Movement (Paris, France), and Haitian indigenism (Port-au-Prince, Haiti).

African American Studies was my crossroad, my intellectual Papa Legba, that opened the way for me to engage in research about Haiti and the African Diaspora. For many of us who specialize in Black Studies and other academic areas, African American Studies was our first love and continues to be our sustaining crossroad to explore further research in other disciplines of study. This is my little story about celebrating “Black History Month.”

Happy Black History Month, Good and Wonderful Friends!

*** I still have to write the book on the religious philosophy of James Baldwin and Richard Wright, and a book on Du Bois and the Caribbean 🙂

I close the month of January with a new poem

“Obsession”
January 30, 2022

I am writing this poem for you,
You are in my mind,
You are in my mind,
You are in my damn mind,
the only thing good on my mind,
you become my muse,
my dangerous love song unseen.
When I wake up every morning,
you are in my brain,
before I open up my eyes.
You are my eyesight,
when my vision goes blurry
and my world gets smaller,
I imagine your presence,
when I take my first breath,
you are with me,
strengthening me.

I am writing this poem for you,
the lines no one can erase
you are the first thought in the beginning,
the last idea in the end,
the stanza that sparks creativity,
the rhythm that makes poems dance
Forever in my mind,
the love song that is obscure,
I would rather die trying to think of you
than living without you,
in my mind,
you defined it,
and restored it.
I will fight to keep your memories,
in my mind,
the object of my affection,
my passion in action

I am writing this poem for you,
the words that blossom,
the flowers of life that keep giving,
the voice that echoes love,
in my mind,
your letter on the first date,
the first kiss at nightly walk,
in my mind,
the first embrace that binds our soul,
the last song of the night that keeps us whole,
You are in mind,
my inescapable trap
in any place in heaven,
where we are one again.

Haitian Poetry Reading with Dr. Celucien Joseph: Episode 1: Ignace Nau and Carl Brouard

Ignace Nau, “Basses-Pyrénées” (1836)

“…Et moi voilà jeté, moi, triste passager,
Sans amours, sans amis, sur un sol étranger,
Attendait du retour l’heure lente et tardive.
Ce ciel est trop désert, ce soleil san rayon,
Ces champs, de mon pays, là-bas, sous l’horizon,
N’ont point la nature si vive.”

Ignace Nau, “Lower Pyrenees” (1836), translated by Dr. Celucien Joseph

“…And here I am thrown, as a sad passenger,
Without love, without friends, on a foreign land,
Waited for the calm and late hour to come again.
This sky is empty, this sun without rays,
These fields, of my country, over there, under the horizon,
Do not have such a lively nature.”

Carl Brouard, « Les Croix des Martyrs”

“A la Croix des Martyrs
les jours
qui ne rythme aucune horloge sonore
s’écoulent calmes, paisibles
comme un ruisseau.
La petite église silencieuse
est toujours là,
est le gazon vert.
Les cretonnes,
les passereaux rouges, lentement oscillent.
Sur l’écran de la vie,
les heures passent au ralenti.”

Carl Brouard, “The Crosses of the Martyrs”
translated by Dr. Celucien Joseph

“At the Cross of the Martyrs
the days
that beats no sound clock
flow calmly, peacefully
like a stream.
The silent little church
is still there;
it is the green grass.
The cretons,
the red sparrows calmly vacillate.
On the screen of life,
the hours pass in slow motion.”

Carl Brouard, “Solitude”

“Seul dans ma chambre.
Il pleut.
Je pense à vous.
Ah ! si vous m’aimiez un peu,
le monde serait mort à mes yeux,
puisque je ne penserais,
je ne verrais,
je ne vivrais que par vous.
Aujourd’hui,
des indifférents ont prononcé votre nom
et mon cœur a battu très fort.
Mon Dieu que je suis bête!
Si je possédais un objet de vous
peut-être
ma tristesse serait moins lourde à porter.
Mais
à quoi bon me leurrer d’espoirs fous
de rêves vains
vous portez l’indifférence
comme on porte une fleur à son corsage.”

Carl Brouard, “Loneliness”
translated by Dr. Celucien Joseph

“Alone in my room.
It’s raining.
I am thinking of you.
Ah! if you would love me a little,
the world would be dead to me,
since I wouldn’t think,
I wouldn’t see,
I would only live through you.
Today,
unconcerned people have announced your name,
and my heart beat very hard.
My God, how stupid I am!
If I had kept a souvenir from you
perhaps,
my sadness would be less heavy to endure.
But
what’s the use of tricking myself with wild hopes,
of futile dreams?
you bear the indifference
as one wears a flower on one’s bodice.”

“Your Body”

Put on a display
to be watched, an image of his pleasure
abused and traumatized, a victim of his presence
one-night stand on steam
condemned and humiliated,
an act of violence.

Wanted for pleasure
for his passion, take-away
to his satisfaction, patriarchal muse in motion
boosting his ego,
ensuring his masculine power,
redeeming his insecurity,
his gaze shifted away from you.

Desired to bear his children
not a son to behold, but a song of his fantasy
not a daughter of charm, but a poem of his demise
a citizen in style, NO!
a leader of tomorrow, Not a all!
but a man of his kind.

“Nested Ring of Splendor”
for and in memory of Hélène Joseph

We remember the day when God spat in the wind to create you.
It was before the day of rest, the Sabbath of peace.
The Divine graced the world with your presence, the first woman, the mother of life.
On January 3, 1947, “The Day of Venus,” you became the daughter of Saturn,
the crown Jewel of our life system.
Candle in the dark, your light shines many paths,
when we venture in the valley of obscurity, you enhance visibility.
when we travel in the mountain of ignorance, you give understanding.
You are like the sea-goat in two harmonious forms,
merging drylands and the seas,
linking the children of the sea
and the children of the earth…
as one big family.
You clothe them with wisdom, creativity, and identity.

Mother of 7 beautiful rings, orbiting our Saturn of life,
you put a rainbow in your daughters’ hands,
to display the optical illusion of life,
each one nesting in the sanctuary of your splendor…
in search of the rainbow of life…
You sealed your sons’ future with the rarest pearl in the world.
With your rainbow rings, you filled in the gaps in their life,
unifying them as one.
In your womb, you nurtured life,
From your breath, you gave birth to life
Under your teaching, they grew, evolved, and became wise.
You fed them, sustained them with language,
words that have no end…
sentences with no stops…
You assured their reproduction through the next generation…
You kept them safe, taught them to crawl…
Under your shelter, they found a home,
both loving and good,
beautiful and sweet.

Clothing them with the majesty of motherhood,
with love and peaceful beauty, you bind them all together
in perfect harmony and correlation.
Mother of seven gateways and thresholds,
you protect our throne rooms,
and guard the entryways of the temple of our hearts.
Your limitless resilience, oh the Goddess of every Capricorn,
pushes us forward to prevail over life adversity and painful memory.
Through your daring ambition, we are made strong;
When we are afraid, we remember your courage.
When we lose hope, your spirit inspires faith and trust.
You fill our hearts with joy and laughter.
You will always be the glorious Moon of our galaxy.

Oh, Mother of 75 years today,
Your days were shortened to only 72 innocent years,
but your strength endures…
your humility is transmissible…
you hold perpetual kindness in your healing wings…
You adorn nature with fresh carnations,
a symbolic gift of friendship and trust to humanity.
Yet you will live in us for 72 thousand years in future bliss,
You, our “Nested Ring of Splendor.”

On your birthday,
we will offer you pearls made of raindrops,
coming from faraway lands,
where it does not rain,
a place where roses bloom in spring,
a place where the sun always shines bright,
a place where we can kiss the moon dream at dawn.
We will reactivate your memories,
stored in scattered phases of life.
We will dig the earth to wrap your body,
made of gold and light.
We will dance in the dark with you between our arms,
we will smile at your simple acts of love…
we will sing your name in places,
where life never ends
where you will be Queen,
where your love, the ruling King.
where your virtues, the guiding principles of life.
We will tell your story, the story of the Queen who never dies.