When Earth Meets Sky: Healing Rites & Sacred Knowledge in Haiti & Beyond

International Colloquium X

Opening Remarks, Professor Jacob K. Olupona, Harvard University
Keynote, Professor Donald J. Cosentino, University of California, Los Angeles
Closing Event, Professors Rachel Beauvoir-Dominique and Didier Dominique, Université d'Etat d'HaitiThe Congress of Santa Barbara's 10th International Colloquium highlights the healing mission inherent in Haitian Vodou and in other African-derived religious systems in the Americas, in indigenous African religions, and within the scope of recent studies in alternative and complementary medicine in the West. These religious and secular communities have continued their healing practices refined over centuries of experience. We wish to underscore how this substantial and significant compendium of traditional methods and recent innovations have proven largely effective in spiritual and corporeal healing over time, for individuals as well as the collective.

In its 10th colloquium, KOSANBA aims to inspire conversations and discussion on healing practices and divine knowledge across the Atlantic. This forum hopes to include the contributions of researchers, scholars, and practitioners in Vodou and other African-derived systems, as well as secular modes of healing. We meet this year in Boston, a center for religious, philosophical, and anthropological scholarly studies. KOSANBA welcomes papers/presentations on issues such as, though not limited to:
* Worldviews and "world sense" in the context of healing
* Shifting religious practices and ideology over time
* New and old literary/theoretical lenses and frameworks for discussing sacred knowledge
* "Spirit injury," mental illness and similar "invisible" ailments
* Arts and other curative practices used for healing and restoring universal balance
* Environmental concerns and secular healing practices
* Religious healing in the face of natural disasters (i.e. Haitian Vodou post- earthquake and New Orleans Vodou post-Katrina)
* Importance of mortuary rites and burial practices in maintaining cosmic order
* Dynamics of religious communities in new nations and peyi blan, the transformation of lives for new converts and initiates