Clark, Mary Ann 1949-

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Clark, Mary Ann 1949-

PERSONAL:

Born 1949. Education: Creighton University, B.A., 1971; University of Houston, M.B. A., 1977; Rice University, Ph.D., 1999. Religion: Santería.

ADDRESSES:

Office—A.D. Bruce Religion Center, University of Houston, 4800 Calhoun Rd., Houston, TX 77204.

CAREER:

Author and independent scholar. Credit Bureau of Greater Houston, Houston, TX, personnel assistant, 1973-74; Scientific Products, Houston, customer service representative, 1974-77; Redact Corporation, Tulsa, OK, and Houston, president, 1977-1996; Rice University, Houston, teaching assistant, 1995-99, guest lecturer, 1995-2002, Fondren Library, user services associate, 1999—; Kingwood College, Houston, lecturer, 2000-01; University of Houston, Houston, lecturer, 2001—. Delivered invited presentations at the University of Florida, 2000, 2003, and Rice University, 2003; Southwest Commission on Religious Studies, secretary, 1996-99 and 2000-05; Council of Societies for the Study of Religion, coordinator.

MEMBER:

American Academy of Religion, Association for the Scientific Study of Religion, African Studies Association, Society for Philosophy in the Contemporary World.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Rockefeller Residential Fellowship, University of Florida Center for Latin American Studies, 2003; grants and stipends from Rice University, 1993-99.

WRITINGS:

Where Men Are Wives and Mothers Rule: Santería Ritual Practices and Their Gender Implications, University Press of Florida (Gainesville, FL), 2005.

Santería: Correcting the Myths and Uncovering the Realities of a Growing Religion, Praeger Publishers (Westport, CT), 2007.

Contributor to books, including Sects, Cults, and Spiritual Communities: A Sociological Analysis, edited by William W. Zellner and Marc Petrowski, Praeger Publishers (Westport, CT), 1998; Encyclopedia of African and African-American Religions, edited by S.D. Glazier, Routledge (New York, NY), 2000; The Encyclopedia of New York State, edited by Peter Eisenstadt, Syracuse University Press (Albany, NY), 2002. Contributor of essays and articles to periodicals, including Journal of Religious Studies and Theology, Religion, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Proceedings of the Association for the Scientific Study of Religion, Nova Religio, and Religious Studies News.

SIDELIGHTS:

Mary Ann Clark, born in 1949, obtained her Ph.D. in religious studies from Rice University in Houston, Texas, in 1999. She has over ten years of collegiate teaching experience, including her positions as lecturer for Rice University's and the University of Houston's undergraduate and graduate course offerings. Clark has contributed numerous observations to the academic community regarding the study of the Santería religion, of which she is also a practitioner, and its inherent gender politics. Her dissertation text, Asho Orisha (Clothing of the Orisha): Material Culture as Religious Expression in Santería, examines the material relationship manifest in the traditions of the religion with particular regard to clothing and altar gilding. Her two books, Where Men Are Wives and Mothers Rule: Santería Ritual Practices and their Gender Implications (2005) and Santería: Correcting the Myths and Uncovering the Realities of a Growing Religion (2007), detail the tenets of her academic research focusing on identity, perspective, and cultural tradition.

In Where Men Are Wives and Mothers Rule, Clark's main objective is to explore the perceived male hegemonic influence in Santería and redefine western understandings of the religion. In order to accomplish her aim, Clark places Santería in appropriate cultural and historical contexts and illustrates the evolution of the religion while also explicating its catalysts, such as transmigration and the Afro-Cuban culture in America. Ivette Romero-Cesareo lauded Clark's use of "gender as a linguistic term, as performance, as a constitutive element of social relationships, and as a way in which to signify relations of power" in her review for the Journal of Church and State. Although Clark's objectivity is somewhat tempered by her participation, Romero-Cesareo insisted that Clark delivers "theoretically-sound arguments bolstered by a wide variety of approaches." In an article published by the Journal of Latin American Studies, Martin Holbraad addressed the risk of "cultural projection," or "reading one's own cultural preoccupations on to other people's," in the text, but conceded, "studying the different ways in which gender is organized in varied cultural contexts is a powerful tool for & showing that what we take to be natural about men and women is just one among many alternative possibilities." Likewise, Clark's second book, Santería, takes issue with biased assumptions about the religion and, in broader language, endeavors to deliver a clear explication of the innovative culture of Santería to a more general audience.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Journal of Church and State, winter, 2007, Ivette Romero-Cesareo, review of Where Men Are Wives and Mothers Rule: Santería Ritual Practices and Their Gender Implications, p. 137.

Journal of Latin American Studies, November, 2006, Martin Holbraad, review of Where Men Are Wives and Mothers Rule, p. 888.

Journal of Religion, July, 2007, George Brandon, review of Where Men Are Wives and Mothers Rule, p. 474.

Journal of the American Academy of Religion, September, 2007, Jalane D. Schmidt, review of Where Men Are Wives and Mothers Rule, p. 724.

Reference & Research Book News, August, 2007, review of Santería; Correcting the Myths and Uncovering the Realities of a Growing Religion.