Ritual Criticism
Title | Ritual Criticism PDF eBook |
Author | Ronald L. Grimes |
Publisher | Createspace Independent Publishing Platform |
Pages | 0 |
Release | 2010-10-04 |
Genre | North America |
ISBN | 9781453758243 |
This book takes an interdisciplinary approach to a topic seldom written about: the evaluation of rites. Enacting ritual and thinking critically are often imagined as mutually exclusive activities, but Ritual Criticism demonstrates their complementarity by presenting case studies in which ritual and criticism require one another. The cases are drawn from contemporary, urban, North American social contexts in which specific rites are undergoing evaluation, interpretation, or revision. The cases eventuate in essays, more theoretical treatments of critical issues in ritual studies. The rituals studied are as varied as the strategies utilized. The diversity of approaches illustrates the ways criticism shifts as types of ritual vary. One rite is a traditional liturgy; another is invented rather than traditional; a third is a hybrid ritual drama; and in a fourth instance the ritualization is so tacit that some would deny that it is ritual at all. Many of the contexts that provide data for the chapters are typified by syncretism, the eclectic mixing and matching of ritual elements from diverse traditions. Other examples involve attempts to engage in ritual invention and experimentation. The essays are likewise diverse, taking readers into territories traditionally the purview of several disciplines. Drama, literature, education, psychology, medicine, archaeology, anthropology, philosophy, and theology are traversed in this effort to understand ritual, an unusually complex genre of human activity.
The Dangers of Ritual
Title | The Dangers of Ritual PDF eBook |
Author | Philippe Buc |
Publisher | Princeton University Press |
Pages | 287 |
Release | 2009-07-26 |
Genre | Biography & Autobiography |
ISBN | 0691144427 |
Central to current understandings of medieval history is the concept of political ritual, encompassing events from coronations to funerals, entries into cities, civic games, banquets, hunting, acts of submission or commendation, and more. ''Ritual?'' asks Philippe Buc. In The Dangers of Ritual he boldly argues that the concept shouldn't be so central after all. Modern-day scholars, gently seduced by twentieth-century theories of ritual, often misinterpret medieval documents that ostensibly describe such events, in part because they fail to appreciate the intentions behind them. The book begins with four case studies whose arrangement--backward from texts on tenth-century kingship to fourth-century representations of Christian martyrdom--allows for the line of development to be peeled back layer by layer. It then turns to an analysis of the formation of the intellectual traditions that contemporary historians have employed to interpret medieval documents. Tracing the emergence of the concept of ritual from the Reformation to the mid-twentieth century, Buc highlights the continuities yet also the profound transformations between the early medieval understandings and our own, social-scientific models. Medieval historians will find this book an indispensable resource for its insights into methodological issues crucial to their discipline. As Buc demonstrates, only rigorous attention to the contexts within which authors worked can allow us to reconstruct from medieval documents how ''rituals'' might have functioned. Ultimately, he argues, too swift an application of contemporary models to highly complex textual artifacts blinds us to the specificities of early medieval European political culture.
Ritual Criticism
Title | Ritual Criticism PDF eBook |
Author | Ronald L. Grimes |
Publisher | Columbia, S.C. : University of South Carolina Press |
Pages | 296 |
Release | 1990 |
Genre | Social Science |
ISBN |
Readings in Ritual Studies
Title | Readings in Ritual Studies PDF eBook |
Author | Ronald L. Grimes |
Publisher | Pearson |
Pages | 612 |
Release | 1996 |
Genre | Religion |
ISBN |
This is the most comprehensive collection of articles on ritual ever assembled. The book includes selections by internationally known scholars such as Victor Turner and Clifford Geertz, as well as innovative piece s that illustrate the extraordinary interdisciplinary range of contemporary ritual studies. Grimes has drawn readings from the entire range of ritual--encompassing its secular, political and dramatic expressions as well as its religious ones.
The Archaeology of Ritual
Title | The Archaeology of Ritual PDF eBook |
Author | Evangelos Kyriakidis |
Publisher | Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press |
Pages | 334 |
Release | 2007-12-31 |
Genre | Social Science |
ISBN | 1938770390 |
A wide spectrum of scholars, historians, art historians, anthropologists, students of performance, students of religion, archaeologists, cognitive scientists, and linguists were all asked to think and comment on how ritual can be traced in archaeology and which ways ritual research can go in that discipline. The product is a fairly accurate representation of research on ritual and the archaeology of ritual: scholars from various disciplines, backgrounds and agendas, arguing mostly in the most logical fashion, yet with little agreement between them. So this book should not be seen as presenting one unified attitude towards ritual and its study in archaeology. It should rather be seen as a reflection of what the discourse in the archaeology of ritual is today. The outcome has been extremely thought-provoking, often controversial, but always of extremely high quality.
The Craft of Ritual Studies
Title | The Craft of Ritual Studies PDF eBook |
Author | Ronald L. Grimes |
Publisher | |
Pages | 433 |
Release | 2014 |
Genre | Religion |
ISBN | 0195301420 |
Readership: Students and scholars of ritual studies, religious studies, anthropology
Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice
Title | Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice PDF eBook |
Author | Catherine Bell |
Publisher | Oxford University Press |
Pages | 292 |
Release | 1992-01-30 |
Genre | Religion |
ISBN | 9780199760381 |
Ritual studies today figures as a central element of religious discourse for many scholars around the world. Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice, Catherine Bell's sweeping and seminal work on the subject, helped legitimize the field. In this volume, Bell re-examines the issues, methods, and ramifications of our interest in ritual by concentrating on anthropology, sociology, and the history of religions. Now with a new foreword by Diane Jonte-Pace, Bell's work is a must-read for understanding the evolution of the field of ritual studies and its current state.