REL 095: TAP: Altars of the Black Atlantic

Fall 2017 ~ T/Th, 10:05-11:20am ~ 481 Main, Room 104 (REL Seminar Room)

•  Instructor: Dr. Vicki L. Brennan
• Email: Vicki.Brennan@uvm.edu
• Office: 481 Main Street, Room 101
• Office Hours: Wednesdays, from NOON-2pm, or by appointment

This course explores religions of the Black Atlantic world—including Yoruba oriṣa, Cuban Santeria, Haitian vodou, and Brazilian Candomblé, among others—from the perspective of material culture. In particular, we will focus on the politics and poetics of altars, looking at how objects are constructed, assembled, and employed in complex and elaborate displays that serve as “the face of the gods;” physical and material sites through which practitioners aesthetically and ritually engage with spirits. Altars provide a lens into understanding issues of colonialism, globalization, and transnationalism; race, sexuality, and nation-hood; and broader questions of human nature, sociality and the world. In conjunction with the exhibition of “Sacred Arts of the Black Atlantic” which will be installed in the main gallery of UVM’s Fleming Museum in the fall of 2017, students will have the opportunity to observe and participate in the construction and installation of altars by practitioners and to examine sacred objects and rituals first hand.

Download the most recent syllabus for this course here: