OXFORD, Miss.- A research anthropologist who successfully
blends unlikely topics delivers the address “Do That Voodoo
You Do So Well: New Interpretations of an Old Spirituality”
Tuesday (Oct.9) at the University of Mississippi.
Martha Ward, research professor of anthropology and urban
studies at the University of New Orleans, speaks at 5:30
p.m. in Bryant Hall, Room 209. The free, public event is to
be preceded by a reception and book signing.
Ward said that her “new interpretations center on seeing
Voodoo as women’s benevolent and caring and spiritual
responses to slavery, high mortality of particularly
infants and children, epidemic diseases, bad local
government and massive social suffering.”
“Making Voodoo into something evil and black magic was the
authorities’ and exclusively white male way of trying to
control the free women of color who led the orders and to
suppress the Creole culture, which gave the world jazz,
incredible cuisine, beautiful architecture, assertive and
politically active women, a flexible racial alternative to
American apartheid and stunning pastries,” she said.
Ward’s projects include field research on anti-racism
organizations and urban shamanism. As a result, she
combined the topics of women’s lives, race and
magico-medical religions into her book “Voodoo Queen: The
Spirited Lives of Marie Laveau” (University Press of
Mississippi, 2004).
Ward’s upcoming lecture is being presented under the
auspices of the Lucy Somerville Howorth Lecture series in
the Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies and the
William Hal Furr Dialogue on Philosophy and Religion in the
Department of Philosophy and Religion. It is also
co-sponsored by the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors
College.
“Dr. Ward, a former colleague of mine and New Orleans
neighbor, is an engaging speaker,” said Mary Carruth, Isom
Center director. “I’m delighted that her eclectic interests
provide an occasion for cross-disciplinary dialogue.”
A world traveler, Ward has conducted research in such
places as the Tirol in the European Alps, China and the
Pacific islands of Micronesia. While working with UNO’s
international studies program, she taught in Austria, then
founded and for a number of years directed a field school
in cultural anthropology at Brunnenburg Castle in the
German-Speaking area of northern Italy.
She has worked with the Social Science Research Council,
World Health Organization, National Institutes of Health
and Wenner-Gren Foundation.
Explaining her latest work, Ward said, “The combined
experiences of traveling, research and teaching have
inspired me to a new project, a personal ethnography or
ethno-autobiographical narrative with an assortment of
titles “How I Got to be White” or “Confederate Daughters
and Voodoo Queens.”
The annual Lucy Somerville Howorth Lecture Series honors
public servant Lucy Somerville Howorth and bring to campus
distinguished speakers in women’s studies. A graduate of
the UM law school, Howorth achieved national prominence
during her long career in public service, including her
enthusiastic support for women’s rights. A native of
Cleveland, she died in 1997 at age 102.
The William Hal Furr Dialogue on Philosophy and Religion
was established by the family of William Hal Furr following
his death in 1974. Furr was an Oxford native and former UM
faculty member.
For more information or assistance related to a disability,
call the Isom Center at 662-915-5916. To learn more about
the Isom Center visit
http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/sarah?isom?center/.
To learn more about the Department of Philosophy and
Religion, visit