Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions--Revised Edition

✍ Scribed by Catherine Bell

• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 368
• Edition: Reissue
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

From handshakes and toasts to chant and genuflection, ritual pervades our social interactions and religious practices. Still, few of us could identify all of our daily and festal ritual behaviors, much less explain them to an outsider. Similarly, because of the variety of activities that qualify as ritual and their many contradictory yet, in many ways, equally legitimate interpretations, ritual seems to elude any systematic historical and comparative scrutiny. In this book, Catherine Bell offers a practical introduction to ritual practice and its study; she surveys the most influential theories of religion and ritual, the major categories of ritual activity, and the key debates that have shaped our understanding of ritualism. Bell refuses to nail down ritual with any one definition or understanding. Instead, her purpose is to reveal how definitions emerge and evolve and to help us become more familiar with the interplay of tradition, exigency, and self- expression that goes into constructing this complex social medium.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents......Page 14
Part I: Theories: The History of Interpretation......Page 18
Early Theories and Theorists......Page 20
The Myth and Ritual Schools......Page 22
The Phenomenology of Religions......Page 25
Psychoanalytic Approaches to Ritual......Page 29
Profile: Interpreting the Akitu Festival......Page 34
Conclusion......Page 37
TWO: Ritual and Society: Questions of Social Function and Structure......Page 40
Early Theories of Social Solidarity......Page 41
Functionalism......Page 44
Neofunctional Systems Analyses......Page 46
Structuralism......Page 50
Magic, Religion, and Science......Page 63
Profile: Interpreting the Mukanda Initiation......Page 69
Conclusion......Page 76
THREE: Ritual Symbols, Syntax, and Praxis: Questions of Cultural Meaning and Interpretation......Page 78
Symbolic Systems and Symbolic Action......Page 79
Linguistics......Page 85
Performance......Page 89
Practice......Page 93
Profile: Interpreting British and Swazi Enthronement Rites......Page 100
Conclusion......Page 105
Part II: Rites: The Spectrum of Ritual Activities......Page 108
FOUR: Basic Genres of Ritual Action......Page 110
Rites of Passage......Page 111
Calendrical Rites......Page 119
Rites of Exchange and Communion......Page 125
Rites of Affliction......Page 132
Feasting, Fasting, and Festivals......Page 137
Political Rites......Page 145
Conclusion......Page 152
FIVE: Characteristics of Ritual-like Activities......Page 155
Formalism......Page 156
Traditionalism......Page 162
Invariance......Page 167
Rule-Governance......Page 170
Sacral Symbolism......Page 172
Performance......Page 176
Conclusion......Page 181
Part III: Contexts: The Fabric of Ritual Life......Page 188
Systems......Page 190
Typologies......Page 194
Orthopraxy and Orthodoxy......Page 208
Traditional and Secular......Page 214
Oral and Literate......Page 219
Church, Sect, and Cult......Page 222
Conclusion......Page 226
SEVEN: Ritual Change......Page 227
Tradition and Transformation......Page 229
Ritual Invention......Page 240
Media and Message......Page 259
Conclusion......Page 268
EIGHT: Ritual Reification......Page 270
Repudiating, Returning, Romancing......Page 271
The Emergence of “Ritual”......Page 276
Conclusion......Page 283
Notes......Page 286
References......Page 330
B......Page 360
D......Page 361
G......Page 362
I......Page 363
M......Page 364
O......Page 365
R......Page 366
S......Page 367
Z......Page 368

✦ Subjects

Религиоведение;Общее и сравнительное религиоведение;