Postgraduate research students

Steveen Ulysse

2804022u@student.gla.systa-s.com

Research title: Rethinking Haitian Vodou

Research summary

Research Summary

My research focuses on the exploration of Vodou, and other Afro-based religious traditions, highlighting how these traditions make and unmake certain identities across the diaspora, paying close attention to places like Brooklyn, New York.  My work seeks to connect Afro-diasporic religious communities, exploring their common threads rooted in the everyday rituals which form the basis of these practices.  In short, my interest lies in highlighting the permeable nature of Vodou, and how the often overlooked mundane daily practices often present themselves in cosmopolitan spaces, and what this means for the development of Vodou, and other Afro-based religious practices.  

Research Interests 

  • Ritual Mounting
  • Sacred Arts
  • Spirits 
  • Drumming 
  • Lwa
  • Divinination
  • Saints

Supervisors

Grants

Scholarships & Grants 

  • College of Arts and Graduate School, University of Glasgow (2024). 
  • Turks and Caicos National Scholar (2015-2018).

Awards 

  • David Ford Memorial Prize (2018), University of Chester - awarded annually for academic excellence in Sociology at the University of Chester. 
  • Emerging Scholar Award (2025), KOSANBA, the Scholarly Association for the Study of Haitian Vodou -presented to junior scholars who have done work which has contributed greatly to the Study of Haitian Vodou. 

Book Project

  • The book project which will be published with Palgrave, focuses on Haitian drumming and drummers in the Haitian tradition with particular focus on the Haitian diaspora. This project is in collaboration with Dr. Lily Cerat, director of the Haitian Studies Institute at Brooklyn College, and Jaïra Placide, a Graduate Scholar at the CUNY Graduate Center, and Special Projects Coordinator at the Haitian Studies Institute. At its core, this book presents Haitian drumming as a holistic archive of complex systems of cultural and spiritual communications and epistemologies harnessed by the enslaved Africans to create community, to affirm their humanity and form a distinct identity out of the pluralities of African cultural heritage. Lastly, this project seeks to present drumming as a living sacred art that considers the past and partakes in the shaping of contemporary ways of being and existing.

Conferences

 

Conferences 

  • 2025: Tanbou se pwofèt: Drums as Prophets, Heralds of Emancipatory Movements, and Agents of Reimagination – KOSANBA, the Scholarly Association for the Study of Haitian Vodou – Nova South Eastern University – August (21-23).  
  • 2025: Reclaiming Neurodivergence Understanding through the Sacred Lens of Diasporic Black Spirituality, The Transatlantic Roundtable on Race and Religion, University of South Africa – July (7-11).  
  • 2025: Fèy o, sovi lavi mwen, an exploration of Vodou in medicine through songs (Mizik Rasin), Edinburgh Centre for Medical Anthropology, University of Edinburgh – May (8-9).  
  • 2025: Aprè Dans Tanbou Lou, Postgraduate Conference, Sociological and Cultural Studies, University of Glasgow – May (2). 
  • 2024: From Cécile Fatiman to Catherine Flon, Fanm rebèl se Poto Mitan, an exploration of Haiti’s founding mothers, University of Central Lancashire – July (10-12). 
  • 2024: Konesans soti anba dlo, a wet ontological approach to understanding Ginen’s positionality in the shaping of Vodou knowledge, University of Yale – May (13-15). 
  • 2023: Kalfou Danjere: Re-Imagining the Lakou Through social media – KOSANBA, the Scholarly Association for the Study of Haitian Vodou, Morehouse College – October (5-8). 
  • 2023: Kreyòl pale, Kreyòl konprann: an exploration of Kreyòl’s role in anti-colonial resistance, and identity making – the Centre for Imperial and Postcolonial Studies, University of Southampton – July (14). 
  • 2023: Rethinking Haitian Vodou: Everyday religiosity, modernity, and decolonisation, James McCune Smith Annual Conference, University of Glasgow – June (6-8). 

 

Invited Talks

  • Gate and Reklame: understanding multiconsciousness in Vodou, School of Education, University of Glasgow - January 2026.
  • Boukman o, nan Bwa Kayiman, remembering the past to shape the future at Bwa Kay Iman – Gran Bwa, Bwa Kay Iman, Prospect Park – August 2025.
  • Defans, understanding Vodou's reaction to harm, conflict, and the specific frameworks which legitimise the use of force, Criminology Working Lunch, University of Glasgow – May 2025.
  • Exploring Mama Lola’s Legacy, a contemporary analysis of Vodou in Brooklyn, CUNY Staten Island – October 2024.
  • Lakou as emancipatory nexus, Scottish Pagan Federation – November 2023. 

Seminars 

  • Kreyòl se Konbit: tracing genealogy of language, creation, reimagination, and resistance, Black History Month, Kilti Lakay - February 2026.
  • Aprè Dans Tanbou Lou: understanding the drums in the age of Inovasyon (innovation), Black History Month Seminar, Kilti Lakay - February 2026.
  • Vodou in the diaspora and the intractable contradictions of gender roles, Sociological and Cultural Studies Seminar Series - March 2025

 

 

 

Teaching

Graduate Teaching Assistant

Sociology 2A and 2B, introduction to Sociology for first and second year students, with the aim of helping students to accompish the following outcomes:

  • Evaluate with some sophistication how sociologists have approached the study of particular identities, inequalities and methods. 
  • Evaluate competing explanations of a same social phenomenon and draw reasoned conclusions. 
  • Demonstrate a growing understanding of the concerns and modes of inquiry that characterise the disciplines of sociology. 

Visiting Scholar 

  • Visiting Scholar, CUNY Staten Island, New York City - May-October 2024 

Guest Lecturing 

  • An introduction to Tanbou (Haitian drums), Sociological and Cultural Studies, University of Glasgow - October 2025
  • From Bwa Kayiman to Batay Vètye, understanding Vodou’s positionality in emancipatory movements, Sociological and Cultural Studies, University of Glasgow – November 2024. 
  • Vodou Iconography, Sociological and Cultural Studies, University of Glasgow – November 2023. 
  • An introduction to Vodou, Sociological and Cultural Studies, University of Glasgow – October 2022.

Workshop 

  • ‘Intersectional Vodou’, Future Directions in Sociology, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom.

 

Additional information

Board Member 

  • James McCune Smith Scholarship Steering Board Member - 2022-2023.
  • Committee Member for Fèt Gede London - 2022-2023. 

Membership 

  • Haitian Studies Association.
  • Society for Francophone Postcolonial Studies

Archives 

  • Archival translator – Haitian Studies Institute, CUNY, Brooklyn College, New York. 

Conference Organising 

  • Postgraduate Conference, Sociological and Cultural Studies, University of Glasgow - 2025.

  • James McCune Smith Annual Conference, University of Glasgow - 2023-2024.
  • Haitian Studies Association Annual Conference, CUNY, City Tech, New York - 2024.  

Collaborative Project  

  • Yoruba Sonic: An exploration of sounds in Yoruba cosmology. 

Reflections

 


Sitting in a chair