Browsing by Subject "Voodoo"

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Remembering the ritual : exploring The other side of shadow
(2010-08) Faia, Anthony Nicholas; Kelban, Stuart; Thorne, Beau
The following report documents the evolution of the script The Other Side of Shadow and the effects that extensive rewriting, character work, and story restructuring have had on the author.
Sacred devotion or shameless promotion? : modern Voodoo in New Orleans
(2013-05) Ainsworth, Kelli Suzanne; Todd, Russell; Dawson, Kate Winkler; Minutaglio, William
Voodoo has become a marketing tool for New Orleans. The city is inundated with Voodoo shops and curios and businesses and sports teams that incorporate Voodoo in their names. Visitors to New Orleans believe having a reading with a Voodoo practitioner is an authentic experience of an important aspect of the city’s culture and history. Today, while Voodoo is still all over New Orleans, it faces many challenges. Most of the cultural understandings about Voodoo are incorrect. People forget that Voodoo is an actual religion. They often see it as a sinister system of spells and magic used for nefarious purposes, which relies on the aid of evil spirits. The truth is, Voodoo is an old religion, still practiced today that includes, but doesn’t consist wholly, of esoteric elements. Practitioners don’t seek to do harm, but to help. Most Voodoo rituals held in New Orleans today are performed in order to petition the spirits to protect the city from social and environmental forces that threaten it. There’s also an ongoing debate about what “authentic” Voodoo consists of. Some believe that Voodoo is ancestral, that it’s in your blood and you can’t convert to it. Therefore, they believe, white practitioners are misguided at best and con-artists at worst. Others maintain that Voodoo is fluid, evolving religion and it can be whatever a person wants it to be. They believe that anyone who is sincere can connect with the spirits and seek their help.
V Is For Voodoo: The Rise And Decline Of An Anomaly In The American South
(2018-05) Harrison, Kyla
This thesis examines Voodoo's evolution in the context of New Orleans's political and social climate during the 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1935, African American anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston published a collection of Voodoo and Hoodoo oral folklore, which she personally collected from black elders residing in the Mississippi River Valley. Her research was one of the first major attempts to explore Voodoo through the lens of cultural anthropology, and to distance the religion from the stereotypical, sensationalistic portrayals of Voodoo in the early 20th century. Being a historically black female led faith, its persistence through the oppressive years of the antebellum South is remarkable. It is through this characteristic of the faith, black female-led, that this thesis examines the prosperity and subsequent decline of the American born tradition. Part One deconstructs Voodoo's most successful years by examining the social and political conditions of 19th century New Orleans that made the city conducive to the success of Voodoo in relation to the aspects of the religious movement that aided in its survival. Part Two explores the Voodoo movement in the later years of the 19th century by analyzing the evolution of New Orleans politics and social dynamic in relation to the decline of the Voodoo movement in addition to the aspects of the religious movement that promoted its decline.