Donald John Cosentino, Ph.D., is a retired Professor of Culture and Performance (Folklore, Literature, Visual and Material Arts, Popular Culture, African and Afro-Caribbean Studies).  Dr. Cosentino has done extensive fieldwork on African and diasporic cultures in Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Haiti. He is the author of “Defiant Maids and Stubborn Farmers: Tradition and Invention in Mende Story Performance” (Cambridge, 1982) and “Vodou Things: The Art of Pierrot Barra and Marie Cassaise” (University of Mississippi Press, 1998). He is the editor and chief writer of the award winning catalogue for “The Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou” (1995), a traveling exhibition he curated for the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History. Cosentino has been co-editor of African Arts magazine, published by the UCLA African Studies Center, since 1988. Ph.D., African Languages and Literatures, University of Wisconsin, Madison.  His latest book is In Extremis:  Death and Life in 21st-century Haitian Art.

We talk about all aspects of Haitian Vodou, including zombies, sacred objects, rituals, and how it has been combined with Catholic symbolism.

*BONUS*  The Voudou Zombie Discussion

Dr. Consentino and I engage in an intellectual discussion surrounding zombies and their cultural significance.