Well, you don’t. But luckily Drs. Fadeke Castor and Akissi Britton do, and they’re here to help us learn more.
As always, be sure to visit keepingit101.com for full show notes, homework, transcripts, & more!
____
Keeping It 101: A Killjoy's Introduction to Religion is proud to be part of the Amplify Podcast Network.
Well, you don’t. But luckily Drs. Fadeke Castor and Akissi Britton do, and they’re here to help us learn more.
As always, be sure to visit keepingit101.com for full show notes, homework, transcripts, & more!
____
Keeping It 101: A Killjoy's Introduction to Religion is proud to be part of the Amplify Podcast Network.
This is Keeping It 101, a killjoy's introduction to Religion podcast. For 21-22, our work is made possible through a Public Humanities Fellowship from the University of Vermont's Humanities Center. We are grateful to live, teach, and record on the current ancestral and unceded lands of the Abenaki, Wabanaki, and Aucocisco peoples. As always, you can find material ways to support indigenous communities on our website.
Megan Goodwin:What's up, nerds? Hi, hello! I'm Megan Goodwin, a scholar of American religions, race, and gender.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Hi, hello! I'm Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst, a historian of religion, Islam, race and racialization, and South Asia.
Megan Goodwin:Today, we are starting our year long delve into specific world religions AND the problem of the category, term, idea of "world religions." You just have to hear the audible eye roll every time we have to say world religions. Here we are, just a couple of nerds, sitting in front of microphones, telling an audience that we love when they hold multiple threads of discourse at the same time.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:*laughs* And I think they can do it, MAYBE even on the first try. O r audience is not full of Hugh G ant floppy haired prats, after a l.
Megan Goodwin:Thank goodness.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:We've got a big episode today, Megan, so let's get moving.
Megan Goodwin:Yeah!
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:We're not doing this alone, nerds. Today, we've got brief expert commentary from Drs. Fadeke Castor and Akissi Britton.
Megan Goodwin:It's not safe to go alone.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Dr. Castor is a Black Feminist ethnographer and African diaspora studies scholar. She's an assistant professor of Religion and Africana Studies at Northeastern University. And Dr. Britain is an expert on race, gender and African diasporic religions, specifically Orisha and Lucumi traditions. She is an assistant professor of Africana Studies at Rutgers University.
Megan Goodwin:Yesss. Both of these rad women introduce themselves and their work later on, and don't worry, nerds! You know we're assigning their work for homework, too.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Frau Blucher, *horse neigh* what's the lesson plan?
Megan Goodwin:*chuckles* "Let's keep this simple," she says optimistically. Uh, today, we are talking about African Diasporic Religions for two reasons. First, because, like we've been telling you for 35 episodes or so, religion is imperial. The fact that most"world religions" textbooks don't include African Diasporic Religions is both white supremacist nonsense and Euro-American imperialism at work.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:*sighing* Yes. Yes, yes, yes.
Megan Goodwin:So much. Always. Never, never tired. Which must be nice for them. And second, because we think you can't call yourselves religiously literate without actually knowing what these religions are, and how they came about, and why they matter to scholars, regular folks, and their practitioners. African Diasporic Religions are beautiful, intricate practices that also are deeply pragmatic, and always changing. We can't tell you everything you need to know about them in 40 minutes, obviously, but hopefully it will give you enough to show you why you should want to know more.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Which brings us to the 101: on today,*clicks tongue* the section where we do professor work. Alright, Goodwin, I have taught about religion since 2009 in some capacity, I have three degrees in religion or religious studies, and I've never seen a world religion syllabus start with African Diasporic Religions. So I have two-- alright, Socratic people, they're Socratic questions-- but
I've got two of 'em. Number one:so why are we starting here? And, what is this catch-all phrase? What does African Diasporic Religions even mean?
Megan Goodwin:I'm so glad you asked that, Ilyse. Uh, if w
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Mhm.
Megan Goodwin:But, that is also the truth. As a campus chaplain're trying to work against the traditional world relig ons model-- and we are, we ve y much are-- AND we're also t ying to talk about imperialism- I know, that is normally your hing, but I'm gonna hitch a r de here-- then to me, there are a few places as profitable to have a chat about this s African Diasporic Religions(which is what we're talking ab ut today), and Indigenous reli ions (what we'll be talking abou next). But also because so few lasses ever start or end or even get here! I ju-- it's boggling to me. once told me, "We can't include everybody's everything!" So in a world or a global or a comparative religions class, or textbook, we make choices about what to include and who to leave out. Our goal for today (and also for the season) is to show you that those choices are political, that they have consequences, and that they, like the study of religion itself, have their roots in white supremacy and imperialism, whether we recognize it or not. We're going to talk about white supremacy and imperialism a*lot* this season--
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Oh yeah.
Megan Goodwin:And all seasons.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Oh yeah.
Megan Goodwin:Always. This is what we do. But, they're both particularly visible when we're thinking about African Diasporic Religions. Let us start super, super simple. Hey IRMF, what's a diaspora?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:I'm so glad you asked, Megan. A diaspora is more or less a scattering of a once geographically concentrated population. And this means, among other things, that practitioners of diasporic religions have connections to places they might or might NOT have ever been to themselves. And in the case of African Diasporic Religions, those places are on, as you may have guessed, the continent of Africa.
Megan Goodwin:I did guess that. And I'm also really glad that you said that Africa is a continent and not a country. We're going to talk about that more, too. *sighs* So basic. Anyway, African Diasporic Religions are diasporic because of white Euro-American systems of imperialism and enslavement. Period. African Diasporic Religions draw on languages, practices, worldviews, and affinities in Indigenous African religions, and as Drs. Castro and Britton will help us see later, pieces of those languages, practices, worldviews, and affinities were often all that enslaved people could carry with them from home. We wouldn't have this category without one of, if not THE, most violent examples of what white Euro-American imperialism did.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Yeah. So what I hear you saying in all of that is that African Diasporic Religions is a category created twice by imperialism. First, by the creation of an African Diaspora by brutal enslavement of Africans, and second, as a broad category within the world's religions model meant to attend to this diverse, broad set of historical and contemporary practices. How'd I do?
Megan Goodwin:That is correct. That's-that is correct. We call that the Imperialism Double Tap.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:*laughs* Oh, God. Okay! So cool! We've got, uh, imperialism, violence, categories-- so far, my intellectual bread and butter. Got it.
Megan Goodwin:*giggles*
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:I think this is as good a place t- as any to ask my second question again, though. So, can you uh- uh, define African Diasporic Religions, Megan?
Megan Goodwin:Let's find out! I bet I can. When I say "African Diasporic Religions," eventually I want you, dear nerds, to think of things like Yoruba, Vodou, Lucum (which is also known as Santeria), Kandomble, Espiritismo (or Spiritism), Orisha practices, and a whole lot more, especially as we think about basically any African diaspora. African Diasporic Religions is an umbrella term for lots of different, complex, dynamic ways of being in the world. But before we dive into allllll of that, we are again going to start so very basic, because if I've learned nothing else in my career studying religion and teaching about it, it's that no one knows anything about much of anything and things most people-- fine, white Americans-- things that most white Americans know about Africa I think I can count on less than one finger. It's like-- it's like half a pinky, and I have very stubby fingers. So.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:*laughs* That's a fair assessment, though.
Megan Goodwin:It's true. So first and foremost, as you mentioned, Ilyse, Africa is a continent! It's a whole ass continent. Not a country. AND, it is not one cogent place. So here we are, in that first word, Africa, talking about a WHOLE plethora of linguistic, ethnic, historic and religious groups that come from a bunch of places in Africa, which is a massive continent. But, we are*especially* talking about those linguistic, ethnic, historic and religious groups tied to and through the transAtlantic slave trade. What THAT means is that in the Americas (not just in what's now the United States, but like in North and South and Central America, and also the Caribbean), as well as in Europe, given the trade routes of enslavers, we're *mostly* talking about West and West Central Africa. Which lines up with contemporary nation states like Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Cameroon(!), Angola-- I had to, sorry-- Congo, the, uh, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Gabon. Did I say that one right?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:That's how I would pronounce it, but that doesn't mean it's right. That just means that I'm not that good at Francophone pronunciations.
Megan Goodwin:Well, okay.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Uh, yes. Thank you for doing that entire list, Megan. I know that, uhhh, maybe a list is not the best for an audio medium, and I promise, dear nerds, in the show notes I will link maps. Loads and loads of maps. Because there have been some *incredible* digital humanities and public humanities mapping projects on the transAtlantic slave trade. But the real reason that we list all this stuff is because my inner "let's be specific historian" (who has been known to rage text over the historical inconsistencies in Indiana Jones) appreciates facts. And I appreciate you breaking it down in this way for our listeners, list or no list.
Megan Goodwin:*giggles* No problem, lady! I know how you do. All, all too well, honestly.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:African Diasporic Religions come from Africa, which is a gigantic place (as we will show you in maps and other visual ways), through the transAtlantic slave trade, and from a whole lot of regions that we would now associate with that list of nations that you just offered. I assume that this is why we call these religions diasporic, since, again, diaspora *Secret Word of the Day* usually means dispersed from one's original-- and sometimes imagined-- homeland.
Megan Goodwin:Yes. You got it. These practices-- cultural, ethnic, religious, linguistic, rooted in place-- that we'll talk about all reflect a scattered population, and a*forcibly* scattered population, I will add, because let us not ever drop that piece, that imperialist violence piece of it. All of which is to say that African Diasporic Religions reflect once concentrated but now dispersed practices that reflect, in many cases, connections to places that maybe practitioners have never visited, places that are ancestral, places that are part of an imagined ancestry because enslavement meant a purposeful and forcible ripping from all one's ancestry.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Yeah, I don't-- I don't want to skim over this. And I know that we're a jokey, educational podcast, but... we're not going to skim over the really violent pieces here. And I think sometimes when we hear a big, complicated phrase, like "African Diasporic Religions," then-- and you'll see, nerds, hold onto your butts-- when we tell you how diverse these practices are, we're really primed to hear this umbrella term as somehow less legit, less authentic, less real, than other terms, like, sa, Islam. But this umbrella ter, this messiness, is our wn making. And by our own, I m an white folks, particularly th se of European descent. It is, l ke we've said at the top and si ce season one... this system i the product of imperialism and hite supremacy twice over. In r pping folks from their land, their freedom, their famili
Megan Goodwin:They don't get the drop down box. s, and their histories, first, nd then ALSO in denying the des endants of enslaved people a quote, "legitimate" way, in his world religions model, to talk about themselves as a one-word, simplist
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:They don't. They don't. And again, that's a messiness of our own making.
Megan Goodwin:*sigh* Yeah. Yeah. Alright, so now that we have defined all of the words in the title of this category, let's talk about what we might expect to find within African Diasporic Religions! One of the reasons we're starting here, but next time talking about Indigenous religions, is that African Diasporic Religions are often rooted in African Indigenous cultures, worldviews, histories, kinship net-networks, etc. But folks didn't call these things religion until after colonizer/imperialist contact.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:That sounds a lot like when we talked about J. Z. Smith's famous essay, "Religion, Religions, Religious," and he said that religion is not a native category, which I take to mean the way of thinking about religion is not a way that folks around the world thought about themselves, at least historically.
Megan Goodwin:It DOES sound an awful lot like J. Z. Smith's famous essay, "Religion, Religious, Religions.""Religion, Religions, Religious." Haha! Funny that, folks-- Yeah. This is-- Exactly. Like, folks hanging out in 15th century Nigeria weren't sitting around going, "This is my religion that I'm doing." As a Nigerian former student of mine
pointed out:to him, Yoruba refers to a language and a people, not a religion. Which in class centers right back to J. Z. Smith, which was honestly great because you know how I love a callback.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:I know you do.
Megan Goodwin:I love it! 15th century Nigerians were using other words, phrases, and concepts, some of which kind of line up with what we mean when we say religion, but a lot of them don't. People don't just like spontaneously wake up one day and start calling the way they've always done things,"religion." African Diasporic Religions are rooted in Indigenous African religions, but often also combined with elements of colonizers' and enslavers' Christianity. The way that some folks talk about this is "hybridity." *Secret Word o the Day*
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Ugh, hybridity.
Megan Goodwin:I know, I know.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Can I get on my bullshit for a minute with this word?
Megan Goodwin:Please always get on your bullshit.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Alright. Cause listen, I hate-- and you know this, cause I think-- I think we read Bhabha together in grad school--
Megan Goodwin:Yeah.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:And I've been bitching about this for years. But I hate the framing of hybridity, and-and its, like, cousin word,"synchronistic."
Megan Goodwin:No! That's even worse.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Because it-it almo-- BOTH of those terms almost ALWAYS assume that there is a cogent, solid thing that can be combined with another cogent, solid thing. So if you're some sort of like, hagl bro, you might say A and B would give you AB. But I, a chemistry bro, would like to say it's like Na + Cl, or NaCl-- sodium!-- right? Where you get sodium and chloride equaling salt. Where we know sodium is its own thing, we know chloride's its own thing, and TOGETHER! they make delicious salt. But that's just... not how it worked. It's not that Judaism is sodium and, uh, Christianity is chloride and together you get some Judeo-Christian hellscape. That's not it! So, I want to he-- I want you to hear this, nerds. So we're talking about things combining. This has NEVER been a chemistry class, because frankly, religion is a fuck ton harder than science. We have NO rules, and there are NO elements.
Megan Goodwin:*laughs*
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:So I'm sor-- I'm sorry. I got us, like, really off topic. *laughs* But as we keep going this season, Megan, with all these world religions, we're gonna see a lot of talk about "hybrid" and"synchronous" kinds of practices. And like, from the depth of my, like, not Christianity scholar soul, I need our nerds to know that there was never a stable way that any of these traditions existed, and so there has NEVER been a stable way that they combine, and they NEVER combine when they do combine in some kind of predictable or formulaic way.
Megan Goodwin:Mhm!
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:I also want to make sure that our nerds hear that there's no governor here. No one's sitting around being like, "Okay, so we've been*violently* stolen, we somehow survived the mic- the middle fucking passage, we've been ripped from the arms of our loved ones, forced to bear the children of our enslavers, forced to *convert* in many cases, and now we're like, sitting around having, what? A secret meeting? A public meeting?About what old ways we want to keep alongside these new and forced ways." That shit is clearly not happening. So these combinations and overlaps, they exist, and there's loads of agency here, but there isn't, like, order, and planning, and predictability.
Megan Goodwin:Right. One of the things that we're emphasizing over and over again is how pragmatic these systems are, right? They're responses to crises and hardship and violence, and yeah! No, you're not, like, sitting down and formally planning a religion, when you're not sure if you're going to survive the next day. Or you get to hold on to your children, or like, are you going to be forcibly relocated again by people who are also telling you that you have to be Christian if you want to live?! So, one of the things that characterizes African Diasporic Religions is a deep pragmatism(I'm going to talk to you more about Yvonne Chireau at the end of this, she's in the homework). These religions offer connections to ancestors, and history, AND really practical responses to some very real, very violent living conditions.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Okay. So, I've taken a deep breath. I-I muted myself, I had a glass of water. Discomfort with the word aside, I can see that hybridity is part of the African Diasporic Religions game.
Megan Goodwin:Yes.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:What else might we say characterizes, uh, Amer- African Diasporic Religions?
Megan Goodwin:I am delighted that you asked me that. So! Because African Diasporic Religions stem from Indigenous religions, those categories share some characteristics. For example, there's a HUGE emphasis on relationality-- with living relatives and community members, with ancestors, and with more-than or different-than human actors (so like, Orisha and Yoruba or Lucumi, for example; Lwa and Vodou). You're accountable to your community and they're accountable to you, in this life and in whatever comes after. So in like, gross colonizer history accounts of African Diasporic Religions, there's a lot of talk about transactionality, like, the assumption that practitioners are bribing their gods or something. But this is a disgusting and honestly capitalist way of thinking about relationality. It's more like, if you're gonna invite your grandma to visit, you want to get her snacks that she likes, right? You get her, like, her favorite flowers! You clean up the joint. And, like, sure, maybe she slips you some cash, or like, offers you a treasured recipe, or just gives you some advice about, you know, how to run your life. But you don't plan the visit because you're going to get something out of it, you visit with your grandma because you love her and she's important to you. So relationships with Orisha, or Lwa, etc, are similar, though when your grandma shows up at your place, she-- unlike Papa Ghede, for example-- might not, like, down a thing of rum, light up a big stinky cigar, and start telling you about how to run your love life. Or, like, maybe she would. I actually, I've never met your grandma.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Fair. That-that sounds more like my grandpa than my grandma, but point taken.
Megan Goodwin:*laughs*
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:So... so yeah. I think that this point of relationality is really important because it creates networks of kin, right?
Megan Goodwin:Yes.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:So, this understanding of relationality is not just about family members, so I want to make sure that we're saying not just grandma and grandpa, but also like, um, honorific, aunties! Play cousins! The community at large. So this relationality is not just located in what, um, frankly Euro-Americans are obsessed with, which is bloodlines. Right? So I want to think about mo-, like modalities of family a d relationships between, uh, w at you, I think, just called hu ans, more than humans, or othe than humans in this big sch ma of thinking about the world.
Megan Goodwin:Okay, yeah.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:So relationality seems really important.
Megan Goodwin:Yeah, and the responsibility-- the relationality and like, the responsibility and accountability that goes with this. Like, your- our wanting to take care of
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Yup. the things that take care of you, wanting to make sure that the people and the places and t e- the things that you love re taken care of and, uh, are ealthy and good. Yeah Yeah. Alright, so what else- What else should I, or our dear nerds, know about African Diasporic Religions?
Megan Goodwin:Okay! Well, for starters, they are still happening, and, uhhh, changing all the time because people change all the time. These are beautifully creative, intricate, and dynamic religions. People still practice them, and those practices change according to practitioners' needs and desires. So we see singing, dancing, drumming, music, and other types of art often factor in. Uh, history and cosmology and ethics are often passed on through storytelling and songs and performances. There's often a big emphasis on healing and increasingly, we're seeing African Diasporic Religion practitioners be leading voices for social justice in their own communities and on a global stage. The thing that sticks with me most when I think about African Diasporic Religions is a phrase I learned from my friend and colleague, Dr. Castor. African Diasporic Religion, she says, "made a way out of no way." Colonizers and enslavers never intended these ways of being in the world, or the people practicing them, for that matter, to survive. But these people and these practices have not just survived, they are thriving.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Yeah. Yeah! And you know what, Goodwin? That's actually a really great place to queue up our guest, Dr. Akissi Britton, who's going to give us just a teeny piece of her expertise on African Diasporic Religions, especially Afro-Cuban Lucumi tradition.
Megan Goodwin:Yes, awesome, very excited.
Dr. Akissi Britton:My name is Dr. Akissi Britton, and I'm an expert on African Diasporic Religions, specifically the Afro-Cuban Orisha tradition, known as Santeria, or Lucumi, and the history of its development in Cuba and the United States. I care that folks such as students, scholars, my barber, or my kids' teachers know about what I study because Black people's relationship to the divine is so much more expansive than is normally discussed. African Diasporic Religions are highly organized, systematized and hierarchical traditions. There's a tendency to view these practices as, quote, "spiritual" and somehow opposite from the, quote unquote, "organized" religions like Christianity and Islam, and therefore people often take a free flowing, DIY approach to these traditions. And that is an approach that I strongly recommend against. Orisha worship, which is the traditional spiritual practice of the Yoruba of Southwest Nigeria and throughout West Africa, was brought to the Americas by captive Africans during the transAtlantic slave trade. They transform these practices into different regional traditions. In Cuba, the practice is known as Regla de Ocha, Lucumi, or Santeria. In Brazil, it is known as Candombl, and in Trinidad, it is known as Shango or If Orisha. The most distinctive practice of the Afro-Cuban Lucumi tradition would be the initiation period known as the iyaworaje. New initiates ar called iyawo, which means ride of the Orisha, and they ear all white for the entire ne year and seven days nitiation period. This radition has been alternately eferred to as a cult, magic, or itchcraft. Which, I don't eally have a problem with the erm magical witchcraft if we roadly define it, but in world eligions framework, it often eans random, ad hoc practices hrown together with no rhyme or eason as compared to the "world eligions," such as Christianity r Islam, which are seen as ystematic in following an nternal logic. Which brings me ack to my first point about hese religious traditions, the frican Diasporic Religious raditions, being these eautifully intricate and ystematized forms of worship. ne year when I was teaching an ntro to Anthropology course, nd introducing myself to the lass, I shared what my research as about, and that I also was nitiated into Lucumi as a hild. While the course was not bout African Diasporic eligions, at different points n some lectures, I shared a ittle of the history to ighlight some of the topics we ere discussing. A young student ame up to me after class and aid how when I initially shared y topic of research and my xperience being a practitioner, he was scared to continue take he cla-- to continue to take he class with me, and consider ropping the course because she ad learned that those religions ere evil. But, she said, after explained the history of how nslaved Africans held on to heir practices, how and why hese practices were maligned as vil, and how it connects to any of the injustices we see oday, she was happy that she tayed and learned a new erspective that completely hallenged hers. That was one oment that reaffirmed that both y experience and my field of tudy ABSOLUTELY matter.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:So as Dr. Britton just said, these religions aren't just historic, they're alive. They have living, real participants and practitioners. They thwart some of our understanding of how religion works, how world religions get organized or valued, for sure, but also how enslaved Africans held on, fought through, maintained identity in the face of unthinkable violence. So for me, I think what I hear most from Dr. Britton is how alive, creative, active, um, African Diasporic Religions are. Goodwin, where else can we SEE African Diasporic Religions? Where do we see this living, uh, dynamic set of traditions?
Megan Goodwin:Yeah! In practice, and especially in what's now the US, we see this in Vodou. So, Vodou is (to be really broad) a combination of West African Vodun religion and Catholicism by the descendants of enslaved peoples in colonial-era Haiti, which is SUCH a central place to resistance, identity, and, frankly, religion, given its long standing place in the transAtlantic slave trade, AND its successful revolution in 1791 through 1804.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Thank you for indulging my need for dates there.
Megan Goodwin:Any time! Especially since you wrote them in.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:You could skip them, I just appreciate that yo-you're doing the dates. I-I need them--
Megan Goodwin:It's important!
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:They're important.
Megan Goodwin:Well, and as-as someone who, again, literally did a degree in American religions, and did not learn about the Haitian Revolution until after grad school, in a real way, I appreciate the specificity here. Because, as the only, like, successful slave revolt, which is also still crippling Haiti's economy, like, more people should be thinking about this.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Yeah, sorry. I didn't mean to distract you. But, yay dates. Keep going.
Megan Goodwin:*laughs* Dates are important. Haiti is important. Pay attention. Uh, we often associate this brand of Vodou with, uh, Dahomean, Kongo, Yoruba, and other ethnic groups, and Haiti, of COURSE, but also New Orleans, again, given patterns of both enslavement as well as later migration. So Vodou is a great place to see how being ignored and devalued in multiple systems-- racialized systems, but also religious systems-- being ignored and devalued leads to real misunderstanding. In fact, we bet that you, dear nerds, know something about Vodou and maybe never clocked it as an African Diasporic Religion. Like, this happens in my monsters class all the time-- what do you mean Vodou and zombies are religious?! And we bet that on top of that, the shit you THINK you know about Vodou is 1 trillion billion zillion percent tainted misinformation stemming from the racist-- religio-racist-- systems that taught you it's evil, it's bad magic, it's dark, it's baby eating, it's sacrificial, it's bloody, it's horrifying... etc.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Yeah, for sure. No one is out here thinking the voodoo that you do so well is just, like, a good shoop.
Megan Goodwin:Nope!
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:For most folks, especially non-Black folks. vodou is little more than"voodoo dolls" and a staple of lazy cartoon writing, bad monster-of-the-week kinds of sci-fi and fantasy, and even that V-O-O-D-O-O spelling. The dark, scary, magical Black person trope, and also Black magic trope is one that is with us-- and of course that's a racist image!-- But I want our nerds to hear that it's also DEEPLY a religious one.
Megan Goodwin:Yeah. Absolutely. Apart from just a way to see the white imperialist religio-racist gaze (although we are always looking for that), Vodou is also one of those places where it is a religion, and a philosophy, and a worldview, and a system of healing. It doesn't neatly line up with how a lot of (let's be honest, like, white small-c christian Westerners) imagine religion. You can't really box off Vodou and get yourself a separation of church and state. Not that I think that there's a shred of evidence that we do that in Christian-majority places either, but that is a another episode.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Episode 106, in fact, Megan.
Megan Goodwin:Love a callback!*laughs* I guess what I'm saying is that African Diasporic Religions, and Vodou as our example of the second, doesn't neatly conform to what those guys with the pens said religion SHOULD be. It isn't just or even mostly about belief, it isn't only about praying or beseeching. It's about healing and connecting with and taking care of your community and finding out what you should do with your life. But NOW, I want to hear from our second guest expert this episode, Dr. Fadeke astor. Dr. Castro and I were in onversation earlier this year, nd here is just a small snippet f what she had to teach me bout African Diasporic eligions.
Dr. Fadeke Castor:One thing about the colonial gaze and the Western missionaries that have that colonial gaze, is that they didn't really know anything about what they were looking at. So they often overlooked the existence of sacred text, right? Because the sacred texts were oral. So, this is... an interesting question. Like, I am somebody who studies Yoruba religion in the African diaspora. And if you were to ask me, does the Yoruba religion have a sacred text, what would I say?
Megan Goodwin:My guess is yes?
Dr. Fadeke Castor:I- Ding ding ding! I would say yes!
Megan Goodwin:Okay.
Dr. Fadeke Castor:I would say yes, the Yoruba religion has a sacred text. And that text is called Ifa. That text is largely oral. And that text is made of 256 books. And each of those books has five to 800 verses. So it's, so, we're talking about a text that is much bigger than the contemporary Bible. And so, you know, if you were even able, magically, to write it all down, it wouldn't be, it wouldn't be, it wouldn't be something you could move around with. Yeah, right. So, but it is. And because it is an oral text, it's a living text, which is that it changes over time. Written texts, as your professor will tell you, are also living texts, but they may change at a slower rate. So one of the common characteristics that the religions share is an ability to speak to the divine, which, you know, was pretty much present in almost all religions. Raise your voice. You speak to the divine, but these religions are unique in that the divine can speak back to you. And this is done through several ways. It can be done through dreams, it can be done through forms of divination. And it can be done through possession, through the actual manifestation of divine in a human body, who then has a voice and speaks. And, and oftentimes, when they speak, what are they saying? They're not making small talk, they're genuinely not troubling you about what you did last Thursday. Usually what they come to offer is they come to offer answers to prayers, solutions to problems that often in literature get talked about as forms of healing. The religions are more than transactional. So in some of the stereotypes of African Diasporic Religions, they get portrayed as being only transactional. It's only about what the divine can do for me, it's only about making my life better. And the religions are, are much larger than that. They have a very complex cosmology, and a very complex theology. So-- but one of the core ways in which listening to the divine becomes very important is in discovering what your destiny is.
Megan Goodwin:Mmm.
Dr. Fadeke Castor:And discovering how to, as I like to say in the shorthand, find, follow and fulfill your destiny and your life's purpose. And hopefully, hopefully, it's to make yourself better, to make your family better, to make your community better, and largely to make the world a better place. They offer a way out of no way. The people of African descent in the Americas are descended from people who were not meant to survive, who were brought over in inhumane human trafficking, and into the most desperate of all circumstances. You know, imagine being a 14 year old girl who went to pick some wood in the woods, and was kidnapped. And you can never see your-your brother who was teasing you, your mom who was telling you to clean up your room, your father who was giving you a hug, and the people in your neighborhood again.
Megan Goodwin:Mmm.
Dr. Fadeke Castor:You're in a strange place with people who have assaulted you, verbally and physically. And sexually. And you, your life is nothing but working. From sunup to sundown. So how then do you go from that to us thriving and, and beautiful and rich, expressive culture i-in-in a matter of generations of Black people in the Americas. And I would say that a large part of that was faith. And a large part of that was their relationship with the divine. And the way that they were able to draw on other systems of power, and other ways of being in the world, beyond that which was being-- that which they were subject to. That which was being enforced upon them. So they had another secret source of power. And this is actually the hidden answer to a question that's often asked, is why was drumming made illegal throughout the Americas? And drumming was made illegal throughout the Americas because even though European colonialists and planters did not understand it, they did understand that it offered a source of power, it offered a source of communication, and it offered a source of identity. And to bring it all together, we know that it was an African Diasporic religious ritual that started the Haitian Revolution. African Diasporic Religions are revolutionary, and they are resistance, and they are also beauty, and joy, and empowerment, and inspiration.
Megan Goodwin:Now clearly, IRMF, there's so much more to African Diasporic Religions than we could get into in one episode, but I know that starting here when so many world religions courses, seminars, online, resources, etc., etc., they just skip it all together, is the right mood-- *giggles* mood-- and move for this here pod. And I am so glad I'm so grateful that Drs. Britton and Castor helped us sprinkle-- like fairy dust!-- some additional know-how on top. Which brings us to... A Little Bit Leave It!!*Little Bit Leave It Theme Song*
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:*laughs*
Megan Goodwin:Where we're letting you know what we think the most important, most interesting, or most challenging part of this topic is. It's a little bit to leave you with!
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:So in this segment, we're telling you why you care about world religions, and in this Little Bit Leave It, African Diasporic Religions-- as content, ideas, or evidence-- why the world religions model just falls short. Megan, what are you going to little bit leave us with?
Megan Goodwin:I a little bit just want you all to know that if you're not thinking about African Diasporic Religions, you're really not understanding religion and how it works in the world. The study of religion would look so much different if it started with African Diasporic Religions and Indigenous religions. And that's part of why we're starting the season here. So I am just, again, delighted and grateful that Dr. Britton and Dr. Castor took time out of their schedules to help us learn a little bit more about it.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Yeah, absolutely. Thank goodness for them. I guess my little bit, leave it with our nerds... I guess I just want to talk a little bit more about Africa, the whole ass continent...?
Megan Goodwin:Mhmm.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:We never think of Islam as African, for example, which is a straight up pattern of racism and ignorance, and you better believe I'll get there when we hit TWO Islam episodes. That's right, TWO, later on, uh, this season, actually I think coming to us in the spring part of the season. But we often divide Africa into "north Africa," where Muslims live (and call that "the Middle East," so it's not Africa at all), and then we call West Africa, "west Africa," where white slavers snatched up people (but that area also had and has a lot of Muslims?). So when we think about African Diasporic Religions, and we just, like, subtract the influences of Islam, both historically and contemporarily, there's just like a set of reasons why some back to Africa movements reclaimed Islam in part or in full, and I just... Ugh, I mean, what's up with that?!
Megan Goodwin:Ooh I know! I know. It's the imperialism.
If You Don't Know, Now You Know:I knowww! So anyway, I'm not trying to say that African Diasporic Religions isn't a helpful framework for pushing back on world religions. It absolutely is. It just also helps us, I think, show how race and religion are all tied up in these categories in the very first place. So I'm not going to delve in with citations here-- I've got a ton of homework for you. But I want to a little bit leave our nerds with a practical way to hear how categories work, like when you think of "the Middle East," and it's most of northern Africa, and how they don't, and how that lets us see where religion is and isn't part of the story.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:If you don't know, now you know-- *If You Don't Know, Now You Know song* --the segment where we get one factoid and I mean ONE, Goodwin. So what's YOUR favorite fun fact we couldn't squeeze in about African Diasporic Religions?
Megan Goodwin:I feel like it's Beyonce. It-it-- This is-- it's Beyonce this time, right?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Oh. Yeah. Beyonce! Let's! Take it away, lady!
Megan Goodwin:Huzzah! Okay, okay. So! Beyonce incorporates so very much of African Diasporic Religions in her recent work. I'm thinking specifically of Lemonade, Black Is King, and Oshun, the orisha of sweet water, fertility, and a bunch of other things because orisha are divine multitaskers. So the video for "Hold Up" is a particularly vivid example, but basically anytime you see Beyonce in a flowy yellow dress, there's some Oshun subtext going on there. And that's it. That's the factoid. If you don't know now you know!
Simpsons:Don't pack up yet, nerds! It's time for homework.*Simpsons Homework*
Megan Goodwin:I, mm, I struggled with not giving all the homework in all the land, uh, but I-I will try to get through this. Okay, so, a friend of the pod, Laura Wagner, wrote a novel after doing fieldwork in Haiti. It is called "Hold Tight, Don't Let Go," and it includes a Vodou healing ceremony that sometimes I like to teach in class. Gabrielle Tesfaye, who is a, uh, filmmaker, made this beautiful short called "The Water Will Carry Us Home." It is just-- oh, god, it's so good-- it's a stunning and haunting illustration of the way that African Diasporic Religions have survived the transAtlantic slave trade, and how they continue to sustain the descendants of the transAtlantic slave trade. I very often will assign Gene Denby's, uh, essay called"Finding A Way Home Through 'The Door of No Return.'" The piece isn't about African Diasporic Religions, per se, but it's just such a vivid and visceral account of what it's like to stand on the ground of so much violence and I hope it-- I find it helps to... *sighs* really locate us in this conversation and understand the ways that so many people are still being affected and shaped by the violence of the transAtlantic slave trade. We cannot talk about African Diasporic Religions without saying the name of Zora Neale Hurston and particularly citing her iconic"Tell My Horse," which is her fieldwork in Haiti. Obviously, we have to assign you a Fadeke Castor's "Spiritual Citizenship." You should also look at Romberg's "Witchcraft and Welfare," Beliso de Jesus's"Electric Santeria." You should read that but if you are not a scholar of religion, you should not under-- assign it to undergrads. It is theoretically very dense-- brilliant!-- but I tried to teach it in an undergraduate class and it was... it was rough, it was rough going. We didn't even get into the way that rootwork and conjure build off African Diasporic Religions, but there is sooo so so much amazing, smart stuff there. Including, I mentioned to you already, Yvonne Chireau's "Black Magic." You should also check out LeRhonda Manigault Bryant's "Talking to the Dead," and Julie Dash's legendary film "Daughters of the Dust," about which pod goals/aspirational bestie Judith Weisenfeld has written beautifully. There is a great Insta documentary about brujeria done by Sophia Galer Smith for the BBC, featuring friend of the pod Alyssa Maldonado Estrada. I'm also just going to share my witches syllabus with y'all because this is a big chunk of it. And then I want to also rerecommend Sylvester Johnson's"African American Religions 1500-2000," not because he spends a ton of time on African Diasporic Religious, but because he helps us not assume that the story of African religions is just Christian enslavers versus enslaved African Diasporic Religions practitioners. The religious history of African imperialism and enslavement is way more complicated than that, and we would never want to portray Africans, enslaved or otherwise, as only ever acted upon. They are agents in their own right, and the survival and thriving of African Diasporic Religions is a testament to that agency and ingenuity.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Yeah. Nerds, that's a lot of homework. I'm about to give you some more. But listen! I put everything in the show notes, everything will be linked, and where applicable, I always stash open access, public accessible pieces. So if you don't have access to a university library, no worries! I'm going to link you up to podcast interviews, op eds, documentaries. Okay?
Megan Goodwin:You're so good.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:So hold-hold on to your butts, I got some more, don't tune out yet. Okay. So. This book, my homework, is... not as long as yours, Megan, but is not short either. Okay. This book is just out-- actually, let me- let me say one thing. Nerds, this is kind of what homework is going to look like this season because we're giving you little tastes, just like, little bites of, like, whole ass things that we could teach multiple classes on.
Megan Goodwin:Yeah, yeah!
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:So what our goal is is actually to stock the show notes with things that you can go explore more. So this is kinda just what it's gonna be like this season. And you know what? I'm not in charge of your fast forward button, but if you want to learn more, you have to read stuff.
Megan Goodwin:Shock and awe, SHOCK AND AWE!
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Shock and awe! So okay. This book is just out, and I ordered it, but it hasn't come yet. And it has an essay by our guest, Dr. Castor, as well as other, like-- actually, quite a number of pals of the pod. It's called"Embodying Black Religions in Africa and its Diasporas." It literally came out, like, three weeks ago in 2021.
Megan Goodwin:Yeah, I need it real bad.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:I read this in grad school, but it's stuck with me so if it's dated, experts, tell me on Twitter? But, um, Reinaldo Romn's"Governing Spirits" is all about freedom of religion in Cuba and Puerto Rico and it focuses on Santeria, spiritism, and other African Diasporic Religions. It has a really good, um, set of arguments abou- about how these things work in relationship to power and identity. It's smart-- stuck with me. But that's it. I'm going to stick with what I'm good at, which is Islamic Studies, and so, thinking about Islam and the African Diaspora, then Edward Curtis's "Call of Bilaal" is the gold standard, quite frankly. Get your hands on that. Rudolf Ware's mandatory monograph "The Walking Quran" is less about African Diasporic Religions as we've framed them here, Goodwin, but it is 1,000% about West African Islam as a site of resistance to colonial power and slave traders, and it traces Quranic knowledge over 1000 years in this region. So if when you think about West Africa, you do NOT think about Islam, this is a great place to rethink that incorrect thought.
Megan Goodwin:Hm!
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:I'm also going to link to a bunch of podcasts from our friend Greg at Classical Ideas. He's actually done a lot with scholars of African Diasporic Religions! And so, I'm just gonna urge you to check them out. He's got work that I'm specifically looking to by Vicki Brennan, Emily Crews, and a number of other ones. Those are just the ones that came up first when I was searching through my own playlist.
Megan Goodwin:Awesome.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Big thanks to those of you writing reviews on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon and Google! It really helps. SO! I'm gonna give myself my own drumroll-- our five nerds of the week!
Megan Goodwin:I'm sorry! I just, I need to pause to appreciate that foley work. That was amazing. Thank you.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:*laughs* Our FIVE nerds of the week-- those few who we want to shout out and send some love directly to are (and these are their names, so shame them, not me): Monster_Seltzer, AcousticGuru, Classical Ideas, SophieBeanZee, and FlyGirl278930!
Megan Goodwin:Love that! I love nerds. I love impromptu foley works. All of this was just, chefs kiss. Join us next time for more HISTORY OF THE WORLD RELIGIONS, PART 1, when we chat about Indigenous religions, and are helped out by rad guest Dr. Jolyon Thomas.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Shout out to our research assistant, Alex Castellano, whose transcription work makes this pod accessible and therefore awesome.
Megan Goodwin:Yay!
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Need more religion nerderie? You know where to find us! Twitter! The answer is Twitter.
Megan Goodwin:It's always Twitter. You can find Megan(that's me!) on Twitter @mpgPhD and Ilyse @ProfIRMF, or the show@KeepingIt_101. Find the website at Keepingit101.com. Peep the Insta, if you want. Drop us a rating or review in your podcatcher of choice, and with that...
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst:Peace out, nerds.
Megan Goodwin:Do your homework! It's on the syllabus.
Bonus Ending:*Black Parade by Beyonce*