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198th out of 208 books
—
103 voters
Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn (Comparative Studies in Religion and Society)
Karen McCarthy Brown's classic book shatters stereotypes of Vodou by offering an intimate portrait of African-based religion in everyday life. She explores the importance of women's religious practices along with related themes of family and of social change. Weaving several of her own voices--analytic, descriptive, and personal--with the voices of her subjects in alternat...more
Paperback, Updated and Expanded Edition, 447 pages
Published
December 4th 2001
by University of California Press
(first published April 2nd 1991)
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It thought it was a really interesting read. I doubt I would have picked this book up if it weren't for the class I read it for, but I liked it non-the-less.
Karen McCarthy Brown becomes transformed through her anthropological field work of Haitian Vodou, and it challenged a lot of assumption she had about life. It really made me think about the "truths" that I hold and broadened my perspectives.
It was also pretty eye opening of to the hardships that Haitians and Haitian immigrants faces. Life...more
Karen McCarthy Brown becomes transformed through her anthropological field work of Haitian Vodou, and it challenged a lot of assumption she had about life. It really made me think about the "truths" that I hold and broadened my perspectives.
It was also pretty eye opening of to the hardships that Haitians and Haitian immigrants faces. Life...more
Packs in a lot of textbook information, without sounding like one. Personal, touching, and more tangible than any other anthropological piece I've read.
This is a really fascinating look at Vodou. Brown talks about it largely from the perspective of the people she grew to know in the course of writing the book, and from her own perspective as she became involved with the religion herself, rather than as an outsider looking at a little-understood (and much-misunderstood) religion. I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about Vodou, and to people who want to know more about Haiti, since while the focus is on Haitian immigrants in Brook...more
Walking between the worlds
Karen McCarthy Brown has penned a masterpiece! Mama Lola, known to family and friends as Alourdes, is a Mambo, an initiated priestess of Voudou who earns a modest living by serving her immigrant countrymen in America as a traditional healer and by conducting Haitian Voudou rites in her Brooklyn home. In 1978, Brown, then a professor of religion at New Jersey's Drew University first encountered Mama Lola while doing an ethnographic survey of the local Haitian population....more
Karen McCarthy Brown has penned a masterpiece! Mama Lola, known to family and friends as Alourdes, is a Mambo, an initiated priestess of Voudou who earns a modest living by serving her immigrant countrymen in America as a traditional healer and by conducting Haitian Voudou rites in her Brooklyn home. In 1978, Brown, then a professor of religion at New Jersey's Drew University first encountered Mama Lola while doing an ethnographic survey of the local Haitian population....more
[granted I read this almost 4 years ago!... ;) preface this review with a heavy "As I recall"...]
My blasé attitude toward this book has very little to do with the content. It is, in fact, a very fast and pleasant read... certainly worthy (at least) of a plane ride/summer peruse. Alourdes' (Mama Lola) tale is an important one... and certainly words like "inspirational," "admirable" and "touching" are not undeserved.
At the risk of sounding a tad ornery, I suppose my issue with the book stems from...more
My blasé attitude toward this book has very little to do with the content. It is, in fact, a very fast and pleasant read... certainly worthy (at least) of a plane ride/summer peruse. Alourdes' (Mama Lola) tale is an important one... and certainly words like "inspirational," "admirable" and "touching" are not undeserved.
At the risk of sounding a tad ornery, I suppose my issue with the book stems from...more
This is a really fascinating look at what kind of religion makes sense for people whose lives are extremely different from our own. Brown's sympathetic treatment of Vaudou helped me to understand not only Haitian religion, but also the religious culture of ancient pagan societies; it also gave me a better appreciation of the social functions that the modern global religions serve in our own society.
I wonder, though, whether there isn't some irony in Brown's highly positive treatment of Vaudou. S...more
I wonder, though, whether there isn't some irony in Brown's highly positive treatment of Vaudou. S...more
Vodou is a misunderstood religion - it is peaceful, individualistic, and deeply spiritual, not the demented caricature our society has created for us to believe. I love McCarthy Brown's delicate treatment of Haitians living in Brooklyn, as well as her clear rendering of vodou's most complicated theological features. This is an important book and a great work of ethnography for those who have read little of it.
I was reading a great deal about Voudou at the time, and this added an interesting side story, specifically helping me understand the differences between Voudou as practiced in different parts of the world. A genuinely interesting read.
Its a good book, you should read it.
Its a good book, you should read it.
An example of how the Vodou religion is so entertwined with practioners' lives you can not segregate the two. A religion that brings ancestors back to life via possession and the difficult history of the Haitian people.
It's not a new way of telling stories, but new for her discipline. Read quickly, absorb it all at once. and do NOT skip the introduction.
Entertaining, but more of an autobiography than a scholarly work. Brown quickly and easily falls under Alourdes' charismatic sway, yet as an outsider from a Western academic background is incapable of truly understanding the dynamics of Haitian vodou.
She neglects the reality of male vodou practitioners (who are, for their part, possessed by female spirits), the subjective nature of her own analyses, and the limited nature of her experiences with one particular individual's approach to one parti...more
She neglects the reality of male vodou practitioners (who are, for their part, possessed by female spirits), the subjective nature of her own analyses, and the limited nature of her experiences with one particular individual's approach to one parti...more
This is an intriguing ethnography that clearly is written from the ground up. We really see in McCarthy's Brown's analysis of Voudou how "primitive" religions actually make sense and play an important role in people's life. What is amazing to me is how McCarthy Brown was able to embed so many theoretical strands within her narrative, making it a gold mind of methodology and theory for religions scholars without making it difficult or boring.
Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn Updated and Expanded Edition (Comparative Studies in Religion and Society) by Karen McCarthy Brown (2001)
I liked this book, but the author is too involved I think. Is this some kind of text book? Is it a memoir? Can it be both?
It was an interesting subject to read about.
It was an interesting subject to read about.
When I saw this book on one of my college courses mandatory reading lists I was dreading it. After the first chapter it had me hooked. The book is a terrific research into a religion that I was completely ignorant on. Voodoo to me was what I had seen in all the movies and cartoons, monsters and witch doctors. After reading the book I became very interested in learning more on the Voodoo Gods and Ceremonies.
Really interesting ethnography of vodou, which I knew nothing about previously. For you anthropology nerds, there is a funny note in the foreword about how the author was doing fieldwork while the whole post-modern controversy was going. Immediately after its publication, her book was hailed as this great example of post-modernism and she had no idea what they were talking about.
i loved reading this book. i love learning about new religions and this was a perfect way to learn abotu one. the author converts to become part of the vodou community and its cool to walk through her process while she writes about it. its as if you, yourself are converting to this religion too.
Excellent overview of Haitian Rada vodou in Brooklyn. Both Alourdes and Karen McCarthy Brown emerge as complex individuals harnassing physical and spiritual resources to solve deep social problems associated with immigration and poverty in America.
The chapters alternate between biographical stories spanning multiple generations of Mama Lola's family and information about the lwa. It's well written and fascinating. Gives a very nice overview of Vodou and Haitian culture.
Oct 08, 2011
Dimity
marked it as didn-t-finish
This book has disappeared into the same black hole in my house that ate my wedding ring, most of my favorite movies and about a third of the baby's socks. When it reappears, I will give it another go.
Or, everything I ever wanted to know about Vodou and more. This was a fairly fascinating study of modern vodou, and taught me quite a bit about it's religious and cultural context.
A book I read for my American Folklore class that I ended up really liking. I knew very very little about Vodoun and now have a pretty good appreciation for it.
Quite frankly, a great book on the subject. (Just stay away from books by Kevin Filan and a few other clowns. Lol.)
This is an awesome piece of nonfiction. super groove!!
Jun 19, 2007
Ryan Lincoln
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Anyone interested in study of religion, anthropology, ethnography
Shelves:
caribbean,
anthropology
Fascinating ethnography and an exemplar for scholarship on religion.
Oct 25, 2008
Stefano
marked it as to-read
just started from the afterword
May 20, 2013
Christina Szell
marked it as to-read
May 19, 2013
Aimo
marked it as to-read
May 18, 2013
Camila Marquez
marked it as to-read
May 18, 2013
Steve
marked it as to-read
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Worth the read? | 1 | 10 | Aug 20, 2008 09:06pm |
Jul 04, 2007 12:07am