With apologies to Byron Maldonado

Michelle Gonzalez Maldonado, a lecturer in Religious Studies department at the University of Miami has written a cute piece on academic superstition over at ReligionDispatches.

This little guy was found wedged behind a crash-prone computer in an Art History classroom. Once he was removed the computer was fine, but the Art History staff themselves didn’t get off so lucky.

My colleague did not want to leave him to perform any more mischief so he was brought to her department. Faculty were not pleased; a modernist in the department said to “get rid of him.” Others joined in to demand his exit. As a way of appeasing him, someone gave him an offering of candy corn. And then he came to me. He had nowhere else to go. It was either I take him, or the plan was to dig a hole, pour some rum and gunpowder on him, and bury him. The idea of PhDs sitting around plotting the burial and destruction of a doll makes me smile even now. I thought that sort of irrational superstition only happened in religious studies—apparently, we are not alone.

(My emphases.)

Gonzalez Maldonado, herself a Cuban-American, primarily focusses on syncretic religions in the Caribbean (Santería, Voodou, Palo). It is interesting that a cursory glance down the list of Art History academics yields mostly Anglo names. Where did they learn the candy corn and rum’n'gunpowder trick?

Michelle Gonzalez Maldonado ‘Rum and Gunpowder: How to Take Out a Vodou Doll‘, ReligionDispatches (22/9/09)