profile-default

Patrick Bellegarde-Smith

Professor Emeritus
 Mitchell Hall 214C

Education

PhD, The American University

Research & Teaching Interests

Patrick Bellegarde-Smith is a professor emeritus of Africology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He obtained a Ph.D. from The American University in international studies and taught in that field. Later, he taught courses in both African-American and Women’s Studies. His scholarship presently is in the areas of African and neo-African religious thought and social philosophy, with an emphasis on national and cultural identities. Bellegarde-Smith has authored, edited and co-edited five books on these subjects, and a large number of articles, notably In The Shadows of Power: Dantes Bellegarde in Haitian Social Thought; Haiti: The Breached Citadel, and Fragments of Bone: Neo-African Religions in the New World. Some of this work has been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, and French.

Bellegarde-Smith is the recipient of the Medaille Jean Price-Mars, Universite d’Etat d’Haiti, and of the Lifetime Achievement Award for Scholarship from the Haitian Studies Association. Currently, he is the President of the Congress of Santa Barbara (KOSANBA), a scholarly association for the study of Haitian Vodou, and the Vice-President (and President-elect) of the Haitian Studies Association. Additionally, he is an associate editor of the Journal of Haitian Studies, a member of the international editorial board of Kalfou: A journal of Comparative and Relational Ethnic Studies, and a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Africana Religions. Also, Bellegarde-Smith is a oungan asogwe, a priest of Vodou.

Selected Publications

Sommers, Jeffrey W., Saint Jacques, Ermitte, and Bellegarde-Smith, Patrick D., eds. “L’Occupation 1915-1934: Perspectives on Haiti and the US at the Centennial.” Journal of Haitian Studies. (2015).
Bellegarde-Smith, Patrick D. Dans l’ombre des grandes puissances: Dantѐs Bellegarde dans la pensée sociale haïtienne. CÌDÌHCA, 2012.
Bellegarde-Smith, Patrick D., and Michel, Claudine, eds. Vodu haitiano: espírito, mito e realidade. Editora PALLAS, 2011.
Bellegarde-Smith, Patrick D., and Michel, Claudine, eds. Haitian Vodou: Spirit, Myth, Reality. University of Indiana Press, 2006.
Michel, Claudine, and Bellegarde-Smith, Patrick D., eds. Invisible Powers: Vodou in Haitian Life and Culture. Palgrave/MacMillan, 2006.
Bellegarde-Smith, Patrick D., ed. Fragments of Bone: Neo-African Religions in a New World. Illinois University Press, 2005.
Bellegarde-Smith, Patrick D. Haiti: La cuidadela vulnerada. Oriente Editorial, 2004.
Bellegarde-Smith, Patrick D. Haiti: The Breached Citadel. Canadian Scholars’ Press, 2004.
Bellegarde-Smith, Patrick D. In the Shadow of Powers: Dantѐs Bellegarde in Haitian Social Thought. Humanities Press International, 1985.

Other Activities and Honors

Photographs

Lifetime Achievement Award for Scholarship, Brown University, 2011

Journal of Africana Religions, Editorial Board Member

Books by Bellegarde-Smith, scholarly reviews

Philosophical and Identity Constructions of an Elite: Haiti in the 19th and Early 20th Century Lecture, University of the West Indies, 2011

Michael Baptista Lecture, York University, 2010

Haiti Bicentennial: 200 Years of Freedom, Hope and Struggle Lecture, 2004

Divine Haiti: Portraits of the Lwa Exhibition, UCSB Center for Black Studies, 2006

African Symbols: Adinkra and VèVè

Download PDF (87kb)