Healing Cultures: Art and Religion as Curative Practices in the Caribbean and its Diaspora

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Overview

The Spanish expression - la cultura cura (culture heals) - is an affirmation of the potential healing power of a variety of cultural practices that together constitute the ethos of a people. What happens, however, when cultures themselves are in jeopardy? What are the "antidotes" or healing modalities for an ailing culture? Healing Cultures addresses these questions from a variety of disciplines - anthropology, holistic folk traditions, literature, film, cultural and religious studies - bringing together the broad range of beliefs and the spectrum of practices that have sustained the peoples and cultures of the Caribbean.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781349620685
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan US
Publication date:	03/07/2001
Edition description:	1st ed. 2001
Pages:	236
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Margarite Fernández Olmos is Professor of Modern Languages and Literatures at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York.

Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert is Professor of Caribbean and Latin American Literature at Vassar College.

Table of Contents

Archipelago—LeRoy Clarke
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• La Botánica Cultural: Ars Medica, Ars Poetica—Margarite Fernández Olmos
• Part I: Healing Arts
• Ethnomedical (Folk) Healing in the Caribbean—Brian M. Du Toit
• Black Arts: African Folk Wisdom and Popular Medicine in Cuba—Lydia Cabrera (illustrations by Hector Delgado)
• Afro-Caribbean Healing: A Haitian Case Study—Karen McCarthy Brown
• Santería as a Healing Practice in Diaspora Communities: My Cuban Jewish Jourbaney with Oshun—Ester Rebeca Shapiro Rok
• Dolls and Healing in a Santería House—Anna Wexler
• Community Healing Among Puerto Ricans: Espiritismo as a Therapy for the Soul—Mario A. Nuñez Molina
• Part II: Artistic Healing
• A Particular Blessing: Storytelling as Healing in the Novels of Julia Alvarez—Karen Castellucci Cox
• The Film Cure: Responses to Modernity in the Cinemas of the Hispanic Caribbean—Jerry W. Carlson
• The End of the Line: Africa, Death, and Freedom in Caribbean Cinema—Ernesto Acevedo-Munoz
• Healing and Writing—Opal Palmer Adisa
• The Great Bonanza of the Antilles—Mayra Montero
• "My Work is Obeah": Interview with Poet/Painter LeRoy Clarke—Margarite Fernandez Olmos & Heidi Holder

Editorial Reviews

Contributors from a number of fields consider the affirmation of the potential healing power of such cultural practices as religion, art, music, literature, folklore, and vernacular language, within a culture that itself is in jeopardy. Among the topics are African folk wisdom and popular medicine in Cuba, dolls and healing in a Santer<'i>a house, and an interview with poet and painter LeRoy Clarke. There is no index. The collection of 13 essays follows an earlier one, , Obeah, and the Caribbean/> (1997). Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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