Spirit Possession in French, Haitian, and Vodou Thought
Lexington Books January 1, 2014 Alessandra Benedicty-Kokken 1 citation
Haitian thought around Vodou possession played a crucial role in shaping French critical theory, yet this contribution has been largely forgotten. The book traces how Haiti served as the anthropological other that kick-started a French theoretical apparatus involving figures like Breton, Leiris, Bataille, de Certeau, Foucault, and Butler, but once established, Haiti's role was erased and relegated to what Michel-Rolph Trouillot called the "Savage slot." The work examines how narratives of Haiti became conflated with an understanding of Vodou as occult rather than as a philosophical system. Later chapters analyze how novels by René Depestre, Jean-Claude Fignolé, and Kettly Mars revisited possession after the fall of the Duvalier dictatorships.