McAlister

Several faculty have recently authored or co-authored books, book chapters, and articles that appear in prestigious academic journals. BOOKS AND BOOK CHAPTERS Joslyn Barnhart, assistant professor of government, is the author of The Consequences of Humiliation: Anger and Status in World Politics (Cornell University Press, 2020). Susanne Fusso, Marcus L. Taft Professor of Modern Languages, is the translator of The Nose and Other Stories by Nikolai Gogol (Columbia University Press, 2020). Ruth Johnson, associate professor of biology, is the author of a book chapter titled "Adhesion and the Cytoskeleton in the Drosophila Pupal Eye," published in the book Molecular Genetics…

In this recurring feature in The Wesleyan Connection, we highlight some of the latest news stories about Wesleyan and our alumni. Wesleyan in the News 1. Marketplace Tech: "Twitter Bans Political Ads, But Is That All Good?" Associate Professor of Government Erika Franklin Fowler, co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project, is interviewed about Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey's announcement that the platform would no longer run political ads. Fowler says implementing this ban is likely to be more complicated than it sounds, and she is skeptical that it will help to reduce the impact of disinformation and improve political discourse. Fowler was…

Wesleyan faculty frequently publish articles based on their scholarship in The Conversation US, a nonprofit news organization with the tagline, “Academic rigor, journalistic flair.” In a new article, Elizabeth McAlister, professor of religion, writes about a lesser-known factor contributing to the abuse of children uncovered in the Catholic Church: In some strands of Catholic thought, priests who abuse children have succumbed to temptation by demons. McAlister is also chair and professor of African American studies, director of the Center for African American Studies, professor of American studies, professor of feminist, gender, and sexuality studies, professor of Latin American studies. For some…

Elizabeth McAlister, chair and professor of religion, is the co-author of an op-ed on CNN titled, "Haiti and the distortion of its Vodou religion." Together with her co-author, Millery Polyné, a Haitian-American professor of African-American and Caribbean history at the Gallatin School–NYU, she provides an introduction to the Vodou religion—the creation of African slaves who were brought to Haiti and converted by Roman Catholic missionaries in the 16th and 17th centuries. While Vodou shares much with Christianity, and its initiates must be Roman Catholic, it departs in its views of the cosmos. Vodou teaches that there is no heaven or hell, and…

Professor of Religion Elizabeth McAlister is the author of a new paper, "The Militarization of Prayer in America: White and Native American Spiritual Warfare" published Jan. 4 in the Journal of Religious and Political Practice. In the article, McAlister examines how militarism has come to be one of the generative forces of the prayer practices of millions of Christians across the globe. She focuses on the articulation between militarization and aggressive forms of prayer, especially the evangelical warfare prayer developed by North Americans since the 1980s. Against the backdrop of the rise in military spending and neoliberal economic policies, spiritual warfare evangelicals…

Professor of Religion Elizabeth McAlister spoke to The Guardian about the state of the Vodou religion in Haiti today. “Most Americans don’t know that they don’t know what Vodou really is,” said McAlister, who specializes in Haitian Vodou. The article describes the actual practice of Vodou, and discusses its critical place in Haiti's history as the first black republic. And turning to McAlister for her expertise, it addresses Vodou's stance on homosexuality. “Many, many gays and lesbians are valued members of Vodou societies,” explains McAlister, who has devoted years to researching LGBT in Haitian religion. “There is an idea that Vodou spirits that are thought to…

Elizabeth McAlister, professor of religion, professor of African American studies, professor of American studies, spoke at DePaul University on May 11. The topic of her talk was "American Evangelical Spiritual Warfare and Vodou in Haiti." According to the flyer for the talk, one strand of American evangelicalism practices so-called "spiritual warfare" in which Christian "prayer warriors" pray against "territorial strongholds." This group believes the world to be mapped into either Christian or demonic space, where Satanic forces operate as "strongholds" of evil. They believe that Haiti is under the influence of Satan. McAlister draws on recent ethnographic fieldwork in Haiti to…

McAlister examines negative prayer, from Afro-Haitian vodou to Christian evangelicism

Professor Elizabeth McAlister recently presented a weeklong intensive seminar on the ethnography of religion at the Anthropology and Sociology Department, Faculté d'Ethnologie, at the State University of Haiti, Université d'Etat d'Haïti. McAlister is professor of religion, professor of African-American studies, professor of American studies. Her seminar catered to Haitian university students who are training in field methods of ethnography of religion. The seminar wrapped up McAlister's four-month study on "Understanding Aggressive Prayer Forms in Evangelicalism and Afro-Atlantic Religions." Her research was supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation in "New Directions in Study of Prayer." Developed through the Social Science Research…

Elizabeth McAlister, chair of the Religion Department, received a grant worth $114,000 from an initiative funded by the John Templeton Foundation, and developed in conjunction with the Social Science Research Council’s program on Religion and the Public Sphere. McAlister plans to study the increase and globalization of what she terms “aggressive forms of prayer,” including evangelical spiritual warfare prayer and political forms of imprecatory prayer, in the context of increasing global militarization. Over the coming years, 28 grantees will participate in a series of interdisciplinary workshops and digital initiatives organized in conjunction with the project. McAlister also is associate professor…

Elizabeth McAlister, associate professor of religion, associate professor of African American studies, associate professor of American studies, is the author of “Slaves, Cannibals, and Infected Hyper-Whites: The Race and Religion of Zombies,” published in Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 85, No. 2, pages 457-486, 2012; And “From Slave Revolt to a Blood Pact with Satan: The Evangelical Rewriting of Haitian History," published in Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses, Vol. 41, No. 2, 2012.

Elizabeth McAlister, associate professor of religion, was invited to present recent work on how evangelical missionaries are responding to the Haiti earthquake at a conference on Refugees and Missionization at the Max Planck Institute, Goettingen, Germany Oct. 6-7, 2011. She also attended an invited conference on the study of prayer funded by the Templeton Foundation at the Social Science Research Council, Desmond NYC, on April 30, 2012. McAlister also is an associate professor of African American studies and associate professor of American studies.

Faculty Publish Books, Journal Articles

Wesleyan in the News

McAlister in The Conversation: For Some Catholics, It Is Demons That Taunt Priests with Sexual Desire

McAlister Writes Op-Ed on ‘Demystifying Vodou’

McAlister Authors New Paper on the Militarization of Prayer in America

Elizabeth McAlister on the State of Vodou in Haiti Today

McAlister Speaks on American Evangelical Spiritual Warfare

McAlister on Studying Aggressive Prayer

McAlister Teaches “Ethnography of Religion” Seminar in Haiti

McAlister Awarded Grant from Social Science Research Council

McAlister’s “Religion of Zombies” Published in Anthropological Quarterly

McAlister Presents Work on Evangelical Missionaries in Germany