New History Finally Recognizes Afro-Creole Spiritualists
To the Afro-Creole Spiritualists of New Orleans, spirits were important, raced bodies were not.
Read Morenew orleans
Distant Churches and the Isolated Poor: Lessons from Katrina, Ten Years Later
In 1995, the first of the Left Behind series was published—a hugely successful franchise that…
Read MoreThe Environmental Politics of Vodou, New Orleans Style
The “Anba Dlo” water symposium held last weekend in New Orleans featured an unexpected alliance:…
Read More
“Hey You! Anti-Semite!”: A Jewish Krewe does Mardi Gras
Krewe du Jieux parades through the French Quarter every year, tossing bagels and handing out “Jew eggs,” small plastic eggs containing a yarmulke-wearing baby.
Read More
Politics in a Time of Crisis: Sandy? Blame Socialism
If there is one thing people need during a national disaster, it is functioning and effective government. If there is one time we need redistributive justice, it is during a crisis. Much of politics perhaps just comes down to what is, and is not, a crisis—a hurricane I hope we can all agree on. But what about climate change? Or health care? What is life-threatening? What is an emergency?
Read More
Something So Broken: What’s Frightening About Beasts of the Southern Wild
Beasts is a transcendental film that enables the viewer to swim through a child’s memories, witness a hurricane and flood, watch a man die, see a home vanish. But is the imagery too transcendent and romantic?
Read More
Tornado Hits the Heartland: Is God Punishing Us?
Many of these weather events actually are a kind of “punishment”—not in the conservative-theological sense of tit-for-tat justice meted out by an Abusive Father on High, but in the more progressive-theological sense of unforeseen consequences of reckless human actions. Climate scientists have said for years that global climate change will lead to increased severe weather events, and now they appear to be here; along with droughts and poor harvests caused by shifting climatic belts. On a planetary basis, we are reaping what we have sown for two hundred years.
Read More
A Pastor Takes on BP in New Orleans
Nguyen sheltered hundreds of Vietnamese families in his church, and remained with them during the floods until the last family was rescued. Now with the BP oil spill creeping onto Louisiana’s coast, dismantling the lives of thousands of fishers, shrimpers, and oyster harvesters, many of whom are Vietnamese, Nguyen is in the position of miracle-maker again. It’s not a question of what Father Vien wants—it’s a question of finding out what a community needs.
Read More
Disney’s Lump of Coal
Disney’s The Princess and the Frog picks up where Katrina left off. The movie is a wholesale desecration of New Orleans, Creole culture, Cajun culture, religion, zydeco, and even Louis Armstrong.
Read More