Margarite Fernandez Olmos

Sacred Possessions: Vodou, Santeria, Obeah, and the Caribbean Margarite Fernandez Olmos

Publisher Marketing: "A marvelous example of African Diaspora Studies . . . challenges our usual scholarly and everyday articulations of religion, even as it clearly articulates the possibilities and limits of Caribbean African retentions in Vodou, Santeria, and Obeah." --Barbara Christian, University of California, Berkeley Sacred Possessions is an unprecedented collection of thirteen comparative and interdisciplinary essays exploring the cross-cultural dynamics of African-based religious systems in the Caribbean. The contributors analyze the nature and liturgies of Vodou, Santeria, Obeah, Quimbois, and Gaga as they form one central cultural matrix in the region. They ask how these belief systems were affected by differing colonial histories and landscapes, how they affected other cultural expressions (from the oral tradition to popular art and literature), and how they have been perceived and (mis)represented by the West. The book is a unique contribution to the study of the Caribbean as a site of mutliculturalism, demonstrating the linkages between anthropology, religion, literature, and popular culture. Also included are a stunning photoessay on Cuban Santeria, a glossary of terms, and an insightful introduction by the editors. Margarite Fernandez Olmos is a professor of Spanish at Brooklyn College. She is coeditor and translator with Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert of Pleasure in the Word: Erotic Writing by Latin American Women and Remaking a Lost Harmony: Stories from the Hispanic Caribbean. Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert is a professor of Caribbean and Latin American literature in the department of Hispanic studies at Vassar College. She is the coeditor of Green Cane and Juicy Flotsam: Short Stories by Caribbean Women and author of Phyllis Shand Allfrey: A Caribbean Life.

Contributor Bio:  Fernandez Olmos, Margarite Margarite Fernandez Olmos is a professor of Spanish and Latin American literatures at Brooklyn College, City University of New York. She is the author/coeditor of many books, including The Latino Reader: An American Literary Tradition from 1542 to the Present. Contributor Bio:  Paravisini-Gebert, Lizabeth Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert is a professor in the department of Hispanic studies on the Randolph Distinguished Professor Chair and Director of the Environmental Studies Program at Vassar College. She is the author of a number of books and is coeditor with Fernandez Olmos of "Healing Cultures: Art and Religion as Curative Practices in the Caribbean and its Diaspora". Contributor Bio:  Olmos, Margarite Fernandez MARGARITE FERN NDEZ OLMOS is Professor of Spanish at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. She has lectured and written extensively on Caribbean and Latin American literatures. She is co-editor of "Contemporary Women Authors of Latin America: New Translations and Introductory Essays" (1983) and "Remaking a Lost Harmony: Stories from the Hispanic Caribbean" (1997, co-edited and translated with Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert). Her other publications include "The Latino Reader: An American Literary Tradition from 1542 to the Present" (1997) co-edited with Harold Augenbraum, and "Rudolfo A. Anaya: A Critical Companion" (Greenwood, 1999).