Marie Laveau

Explicit content warning

02/27/20 • 84 min

In the melting pot of 19th century New Orleans, one woman emerged as the most powerful and legendary practitioners of Louisiana Voodoo. From her humble beginnings as the daughter of a free-man and his Voodoo doctor mistress, Laveau grew up to become a priestess, a healer, an activist and a commanding and influential leader of her community. But Laveau's story is as much legend as it is reality, and even in her lifetime stories proliferated about her midnight graveyard ceremonies, animal sacrifices and mesmerising evil incantations.

So how, in a story like this, do we tell the difference between history and myth? And who do we believe when we listen to her story? Join us for our Season Four premier as we pick apart the complex and fascinating life of the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans, Marie Laveau!

Fandrich, Ina Johanna. The Mysterious Voodoo Queen, Marie Laveaux : a Study of Powerful Female Leadership in Nineteenth-Century New Orleans. Routledge, 2016.

Long, Carolyn Morrow. "Perceptions of New Orleans Voodoo: Sin, Fraud, Entertainment, and Religion." Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 6.1 (2002): 86-101.

Ward, Martha. Voodoo Queen The Spirited Lives of Marie Laveau. University Press of Mississippi, 2004.

Hurston, Zora. “Hoodoo in America.” Journal of American Folklore, 44. 171 (1931): pp. 317-417.

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Deviant Women is recorded and produced on the lands of the Kaurna People and we pay our respect to Elders past, present and emerging.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fandrich, Ina Johanna. The Mysterious Voodoo Queen, Marie Laveaux : a Study of Powerful Female Leadership in Nineteenth-Century New Orleans. Routledge, 2016.

Long, Carolyn Morrow. "Perceptions of New Orleans Voodoo: Sin, Fraud, Entertainment, and Religion." Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 6.1 (2002): 86-101.

Ward, Martha. Voodoo Queen The Spirited Lives of Marie Laveau. University Press of Mississippi, 2004.

Hurston, Zora. “Hoodoo in America.” Journal of American Folklore, 44. 171 (1931): pp. 317-417.

If you want to support Deviant Women, follow us on:

Patreon

Twitter @DeviantWomen

Facebook @deviantwomenpodcast

Instagram @deviantwomenpodcast

Deviant Women is recorded and produced on the lands of the Kaurna People and we pay our respect to Elders past, present and emerging.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Previous Episode

Season 4 Trailer

It’s 2020, and on February 27 Deviant Women are back for season four, bringing you more hags and enchantresses, more gender-queering lady-lovers, more gin-swirling, party-loving bohemians, and more brilliant muses and killer queens.

This isn’t just a podcast that celebrates the heroism of forgotten women of the past: Deviant Women isn’t afraid to get down and dirty with the good, the bad, and everything in between, unpicking the blurry zigzag of history and myth and the downright messy and misunderstood stories of femininity we’ve been telling ourselves for centuries.

So join Deviant Women on February 27 as they launch another season dedicated to unravelling the stories of those who double, double toiled and troubled, who fought and duelled and died in glorious ruin, and who didn’t write the rules, but smashed them.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Next Episode

Bessie Smith

At the turn of the twentieth-century, in the rowdy streets of Chattanooga, Tennessee, a young Bessie Smith was literally singing for her supper. Busking alongside her brother, Bessie learned the hard way just what it took to capture an audience against the odds: to sing and dance and demand attention despite the clatter of carts and the shouts of storeowners and vendors selling their wares. This early foray into the performing life would help shape Smith into the greatest performer of her age, rising up to the heights of Empress of the Blues and becoming the highest paid black entertainer of her day. In her private life she was just as bold and brash as her stage persona, never shying away from saying what she thought and more than happy to get into a fistfight or two. So put the needle on some vinyl and join us we get down and bluesy with Bessie Smith.

Brooks, Edward. The Bessie Smith Companion. Da Capo, 1983.

Clark, John. Experiencing Bessie Smith: A Listeners Companion. Rowman and Littlefield, 2017.

NPR’s “Jazz Profiles” Bessie Smith: ‘Blues Empress’. May 7, 2008, https://www.npr.org/2008/05/07/90206287/bessie-smith-blues-empress

Scott, Michelle R. Blues Empress in Black Chattanooga: Bessie Smith and the Emerging Urban South. University of Illinois Press, 2008.

If you want to support Deviant Women, follow us on:

Patreon

Twitter @DeviantWomen

Facebook @deviantwomenpodcast

Instagram @deviantwomenpodcast

Deviant Women is recorded and produced on the lands of the Kaurna People and we pay our respect to Elders past, present and emerging.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.