About

Cosentino joined WAC in 1988. He has done extensive fieldwork in Nigeria (1966-68; 1976-78), Sierra Leone (1972-3; 1983), Haiti (1986-2005) and Los Angeles (1979-present). 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), and for Divine Revolution: the Art of Edouard Duval-Carri? (2004). As a Guggenheim Fellow (2006), Cosentino recently completed fieldwork for a book on Afro-Angeleno Spiritism. Ph.D., African Languages and Literatures, University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Expertise

Folklore, Literature, Visual and Material Arts, Popular Culture, African and Afro-Caribbean Studies.

Research

Cosentino's research interests include Black Atlantic oral narrative traditions, myths, rituals and popular cultures.