Content warning: this post is illustrated with offensive images from an unusual Golden-Age comic book that may disturb. When I turned back to writing about comics, I couldn’t stop thinking of magic, religion, and race, three interconnected topics I can’t seem to get enough of. It’s all so very fraught, but it is very interesting,Continue reading “Best-Forgotten: Race, Religion, and the Super Magician comics”
Category Archives: Religious Studies
Hat Tricks: The Fez and the Turban in Africana Religions
We aren’t sure whether it was Shakespeare or Mark Twain who coined the phrase “the clothes make the man” but it is true that clothing makes an obvious declaration of one’s status in Africana religions. I see the relationship between head covering and spirituality as demonstrative of how people articulate inner commitments, using outward forms.Continue reading “Hat Tricks: The Fez and the Turban in Africana Religions”
Black Gods of the Cosmopolis!
This is the third in a series of posts on Africana religions and the comics. Some remarkable images made their way around the digital space this week. Aficionados of black religion will immediately recognize these extraordinary renderings of the popular divinities in Brazil that are known as orixas. Worshipped throughout the Americas but especially beloved in Bahia, theContinue reading “Black Gods of the Cosmopolis!”
More than Skin Deep: Haitian Vodou, Corporate Social Activism and the Commodification of Healing
“In partnership with Direct Relief, The Vaseline® Healing Project is an aid effort to provide dermatological care, Vaseline® Jelly & medical supplies needed to help heal the skin of people affected by poverty or emergencies around the world.” What do we think of a religion that helped to bring nearly a half a million enslavedContinue reading “More than Skin Deep: Haitian Vodou, Corporate Social Activism and the Commodification of Healing”
Voodoo Brothers: Africana Religions and the Comics, pt. 2
As some of you know, my current project is a book-length study of Africana religions and comics, where I consider how graphic formats are utilized for representing the spiritual traditions of black people. I keep getting sidetracked, though, because the sources are so diverse, and there are a million different stories that need to be told. SoContinue reading “Voodoo Brothers: Africana Religions and the Comics, pt. 2”
Halloween Special: 20th century Black Horror Movie and Africana Religions
In this blog I want to note the continuing relevance of Voodoo as a trope in media and entertainment cultures by highlighting the historical significance of horror films. But I already covered this topic somewhat in an earlier period with reference to jungle Voodoo, and anyway, I find this sort of material to be kindContinue reading “Halloween Special: 20th century Black Horror Movie and Africana Religions”
She-roes and She-gods? Africana Religions and the Comics, pt. one
Are you a comics fan? My latest project deals with religion in comic books and graphic novels from the Golden Age to the present, where I look for characters who possess what might be seen as god-like powers, supernatural abilities, and fantastic technologies. Perhaps we might think of them as modern-day deities. Being obsessed with religion I wonder if there isContinue reading “She-roes and She-gods? Africana Religions and the Comics, pt. one”
Circus Freaks, White Voodoo Women, and the Amazing Afro
In between working on serious stuff that takes up my time, I look at images. Some of these images may seem as though they are not related – but they actually are – like these African circus “freak” posters from the early twentieth century and their counterparts from contemporary body mod subcultures in the United States. So who is the savage?Continue reading “Circus Freaks, White Voodoo Women, and the Amazing Afro”
Marie Laveau, Hoodoo-Voodoo-Vodou Icon
She belongs to everyone, now. I knew that it was time to write this post after all of the students in the class I was teaching had seen the third season of the FX series American Horror Story, starring Angela Bassett as Marie Laveau, except me. Most of my students had never heard of Mme MarieContinue reading “Marie Laveau, Hoodoo-Voodoo-Vodou Icon”
Beautiful women with Cigars
As you might guess, this post is about pictures. But it might not be what you expect. I wasn’t exactly sure what I could say about this remarkable collection, compliments of the photographers at Flickr, that would speak any more eloquently than they do by themselves. But I am going to try. I want toContinue reading “Beautiful women with Cigars”