On November 28, 2017 at 5:00 p.m. Doctor Paul C. Johnson spoke at the Waterman Lounge at the University of Vermont about the African diasporic religion of Candomble. Doctor Paul C. Johnson is a professor at the University of Michigan, and has published books on topics like Candomble and spirit possession. Interestingly enough, Doctor Johnson’s book on spirit possession was called Spirited Things: The Work of “Possession” in Afro-Atlantic Religions, which in turn was used as the title of the Flemming museum exhibit, “Spirited Things”.

Doctor Johnson’s lecture centralized on the development of Candomble with a focus towards spirit possession. He did this by contrasting the way they practice Candomble in Brazil versus how it is practiced in the Bronx, and then analysing the differences between the two. Introducing spirit possession into the picture, made it very interesting to see how in some places, they can freely practice, but in places like New York, an adequate venue would only be available at a certain time on a certain day of the week. Towards the end, he steered his focus towards gender and brought about a new light towards the religion of Candomble. It was intriguing how it seemed that Candomble definition of gender is more focused on the attributes of a character, like calm, relaxed, angry and aggressive, and as with many of African Diasporic religions, men would tend have more of the hot characteristics, while women would more likely have cooler traits.

This connected directly to what we are talking about in my religion class for a multitude of reasons. The most direct connection, is that we have read a chapter out his book Secrets, Gossip and Gods: The Transformation of Brazilian Candomblé which includes a more clear explanation of Candomble defines gender. In describing the Orisa, he uses Juana Elbein dos Santos reading that determined their traits to be, “female: earth and water: white: “coolness”: primordial mas :: male: sky and fire: red/black: “heat”: individual creation”. Another link between the lecture and what we have learned about in class, is when he discussed the aspects of spirit possession. When looking into the Haitian Vodou religion, we focused heavily on spirit possession, including how it theoretically works, how it is practiced, why it is practiced, and more. However, this lecture made me think about the more realistic side spirit possession that did not seem to come up in class, and that is the space and time. Especially in America, where spirit possession is thought of as witchcraft, it is important to think about how each individual participating in the ritual has to drop everything they’re doing at certain time, and go to whatever space is available for them to use. This speaks tremendously to the amount of faith they must have in their religion, and how tremendously the religion is a part of them.

Overall, I would say that Doctor Johnson did a great job of bring up interesting and complex ideas. I will say however, that his style of presentation seemed a little too monotone, and that it would sometimes sound like he was rambling on. I think that simply adding more flair to the lecture’s content (introducing a thought provoking idea), instead of focusing on the aesthetics would result in a more enticing lecture.  

Joe P