Ritual in Its Own Right

Ritual in Its Own Right PDF

Author: Don Handelman

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2005-01-01

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 0857458884

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Historically, canonic studies of ritual have discussed and explained ritual organization, action, and transformation primarily as representations of broader cultural and social orders. In the present, as in the past, less attention is given to the power of ritual to organize and effect transformation through its own dynamics. Breaking with convention, the contributors to this volume were asked to discuss ritual first and foremost in relation to itself, in its own right, and only then in relation to its socio-cultural context. The results attest to the variable capacities of rites to effect transformation through themselves, and to the study of phenomena in their own right as a fertile approach to comprehending ritual dynamics.

Ritual in Its Own Right

Ritual in Its Own Right PDF

Author: Don Handelman

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 9781845450519

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Historically, canonic studies of ritual have discussed and explained ritual organization, action, and transformation primarily as representations of broader cultural and social orders. In the present, as in the past, less attention is given to the power of ritual to organize and effect transformation through its own dynamics. Breaking with convention, the contributors to this volume were asked to discuss ritual first and foremost in relation to itself, in its own right, and only then in relation to its socio-cultural context. The results attest to the variable capacities of rites to effect transformation through themselves, and to the study of phenomena in their own right as a fertile approach to comprehending ritual dynamics.

Women as Unseen Characters

Women as Unseen Characters PDF

Author: Pascale Bonnemère

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2013-03-26

Total Pages: 275

ISBN-13: 081220137X

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Rituals have always been a focus of ethnographies of Melanesia, providing a ground for important theorizing in anthropology. This is especially true of the male initiation rituals that until recently were held in Papua New Guinea. For the most part, these rituals have been understood as all-male institutions, intended to maintain and legitimate male domination. Women's exclusion from the forest space where men conducted most such rites has been taken as a sign of their exclusion from the entire ritual process. Women as Unseen Characters is the first book to examine the role of females in Papua New Guinea male rituals, and the first systematic treatment of this issue for any part of the world. In this volume, leading Melanesian scholars build on recent ethnographies that show how female kin had roles in male rituals that had previously gone unseen. Female seclusion and the enforcement of taboos were crucial elements of the ritual process: forms of presence in their own right. Contributors here provide detailed accounts of the different kinds of female presence in various Papua New Guinea male rituals. When these are restored to the picture, the rituals can no longer be interpreted merely as an institution for reproducing male domination but must also be understood as a moment when the whole system of relations binding a male person to his kin is reorganized. By dealing with the participation of women, a totally neglected dimension of male rituals is added to our understanding.

Ritual: Key Concepts in Religion

Ritual: Key Concepts in Religion PDF

Author: Pamela J. Stewart

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2014-01-16

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13: 1623568463

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Ritual has emerged as a major focus of academic interest. As a concept, the idea of ritual integrates the study of behavior both within and beyond the domain of religion. Ritual can be both secular and religious in character. There is renewed interest in questions such as: Why do rituals exist at all? What has been, and continues to be, their place in society? How do they change over time? Such questions exist against a backdrop of assumptions about development, modernization, and disenchantment of the world. Written with the specific needs of students of religious studies in mind, Ritual: Key Concepts in Religion surveys the field of ritual studies, looking at it both historically within anthropology and in terms of its contemporary relevance to world events.

The Power of Ritual

The Power of Ritual PDF

Author: Rachel Pollack

Publisher: Dell

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 9780440508724

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For those seeking spiritual wholeness, a sense of belonging and a connection to something greater than themselves, "The Power of Ritual" explores the ways in which ritual can transform lives.

Moebius Anthropology

Moebius Anthropology PDF

Author: Don Handelman

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2020-10-07

Total Pages: 363

ISBN-13: 1789208556

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Don Handelman’s groundbreaking work in anthropology is showcased in this collection of his most powerful essays, edited by Matan Shapiro and Jackie Feldman. The book looks at the intellectual and spiritual roots of Handelman’s initiation into anthropology; his work on ritual and on “bureaucratic logic”; analyses of cosmology; and innovative essays on Anthropology and Deleuzian thinking. Handelman reconsiders his theory of the forming of form and how this relates to a new theory of the dynamics of time. This will be the definitive collection of articles by one of the most important anthropologists of the late 20th Century.

Voices of the Ritual

Voices of the Ritual PDF

Author: Nurit Stadler

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2020-05-15

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 0197501311

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Voices of the Ritual analyzes the revival of rituals performed at female saint shrines in the Middle East. In the midst of turbulent political contention over land and borders, Nurit Stadler shows, religious minorities lay claim to space through rituals enacted at sacred spaces in the Holy Land. Using ethnographic analysis, Stadler explores the rise of these rituals, their focus on the body, female materiality, and their place in the Israeli-Palestinian landscape. Stadler examines the varied features of the practice and implications of the rituals, looking at themes of femininity and material experience. She considers the role of the body in rituals that represent the act of birth or the circle of life and that aim to foster an intimate connection between the female saint and her worshippers. Stadler underscores the political, cultural, and spatial elements of this practice, bringing attention to how religious minorities (Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Druze, among others) have utilized these rituals to assert their right to the land. Voices of the Ritual offers a valuable assessment of religious ritual practice that encrypts female themes into a landscape that has historically been defined by war and conflict.

Performance and Ethnography

Performance and Ethnography PDF

Author: Peter Harrop

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2013-07-16

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 1443850071

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Performance and Ethnography: Dance, Drama, Music revisits the territory of the performance orientation, touching on anthropology, dance, folklore, music and theatre to look for present trends in both the ethnography of performance and performance ethnography. One of the main concerns of this volume is with an embodied, affective and sensory ethnography that privileges encounters between ethnographer, participants and practices as key to understanding and knowledge. Another is the extent to which individuals are shaped by their engagement with ethnographic practice in the midst of migration, diffusion, revival, appropriation and commodification of performance. A third is the interface of academic disciplines with the idea of performance, and the way in which academics and practitioners are drawn to ethnography to better understand, negotiate, perform and profess their diverse fields. Individual chapters include a refreshed interface for performance studies and anthropology through new approaches to ritual; a consideration of performance studies through an ethnography of PSi; the emplaced body as a tool for ethnographic research; somatic practice in dance as a mode of ethnography; artisanal musical instrument making as performance; the commodification of traditional performance; and an introductory overview that reflects shifting ethnographic perspectives on traditional performances.

Vedic Practice, Ritual Studies and Jaimini’s Mīmāṃsāsūtras

Vedic Practice, Ritual Studies and Jaimini’s Mīmāṃsāsūtras PDF

Author: Samuel G. Ngaihte

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-06-27

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1000024490

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Drawing on insights from Indian intellectual tradition, this book examines the conception of dharma by Jaimini in his Mīmāṃsāsūtras, assessing its contemporary relevance, particularly within ritual scholarship. Presenting a hermeneutical re-reading of the text, it investigates the theme of the relationship between subjectivity and tradition in the discussion of dharma, bringing it into conversation with contemporary discourses on ritual. The primary argument offered is that Jaimini’s conception of dharma can be read as a philosophy of Vedic practice, centred on the enjoinment of the subject, whose stages of transformation possess the structure of a hermeneutic tradition. Offering both substantive and methodological insights into the contentions within the contemporary study of ritual, this book will be of interest to researchers in the fields of Hindu studies, ritual studies, Asian religion, and South Asian studies.

Rituals of the Past

Rituals of the Past PDF

Author: Silvana Rosenfeld

Publisher: University Press of Colorado

Published: 2017-03-15

Total Pages: 335

ISBN-13: 1607325969

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Rituals of the Past explores the various approaches archaeologists use to identify ritual in the material record and discusses the influence ritual had on the formation, reproduction, and transformation of community life in past Andean societies. A diverse group of established and rising scholars from across the globe investigates how ritual influenced, permeated, and altered political authority, economic production, shamanic practice, landscape cognition, and religion in the Andes over a period of three thousand years. Contributors deal with theoretical and methodological concerns including non-human and human agency; the development and maintenance of political and religious authority, ideology, cosmologies, and social memory; and relationships with ritual action. The authors use a diverse array of archaeological, ethnographic, and linguistic data and historical documents to demonstrate the role ritual played in prehispanic, colonial, and post-colonial Andean societies throughout the regions of Peru, Chile, Bolivia, and Argentina. By providing a diachronic and widely regional perspective, Rituals of the Past shows how ritual is vital to understanding many aspects of the formation, reproduction, and change of past lifeways in Andean societies. Contributors: Sarah Abraham, Carlos Angiorama, Florencia Avila, Camila Capriata Estrada, David Chicoine, Daniel Contreras, Matthew Edwards, Francesca Fernandini, Matthew Helmer, Hugo Ikehara, Enrique Lopez-Hurtado, Jerry Moore, Axel Nielsen, Yoshio Onuki, John Rick, Mario Ruales, Koichiro Shibata, Hendrik Van Gijseghem, Rafael Vega-Centeno, Verity Whalen