A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion

by Editor: Michael Lambek (University of Toronto)

• ISBN13: 9780631221135
• ISBN10: 0631221131
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-01-01
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion is a collection of some of the most significant classic and contemporary writings within the anthropology of religion. Editor Michael Lambek has taken care to avoid reifying the category of religion and the various topics often subsumed within it. Indeed, a major contribution by anthropologists has been to challenge these kinds of categories, which stem from Western thought and language, Christianity, and ethnocentric views of non-Western people. This Reader includes material whose theme is religion in a straightforward and obvious sense, as well as contributions that expand how we might look at religion and the horizons of what we mean by religion linking it to broader questions of culture and politics. Designed for maximum utility, the volume includes a general introduction as well as an extensive bibliography indexed according to both ethnographic region and religious topics and practices, in order to enhance its accessibility. Each section and individual entry in the volume includes brief prefatory remarks by the editor and suggestions for further reading.

Author Biography

Michael Lambek is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Toronto

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xi
General Introduction	1	(16)
Part 1 The Context of Understanding and Debate	17	(116)
Opening Frameworks	19	(1)
Introduction	19	(2)
Religion in Primitive Culture	21	(13)
Edward Burnett Tylor
The Elementary Forms of Religious Life	34	(16)
Emile Durkheim
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism	50	(11)
Max Weber
Religion as a Cultural System	61	(24)
Clifford Geertz
Skeptical Rejoinders	83	(1)
Introduction	83	(2)
Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough	85	(5)
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Religion, Totemism and Symbolism	90	(9)
W. E. H. Stanner
Christians as Believers	99	(15)
Malcolm Ruel
The Construction of Religion as an Anthropological Category	114	(19)
Talal Asad
Part II Poiesis: The Composition of Religious Worlds	133	(194)
Signs and Symbols	135	(1)
Introduction	135	(1)
The Logic of Signs and Symbols	136	(9)
Susanne K. Langer
The Problem of Symbols	145	(13)
E. E. Evans-Pritchard
On Key Symbols	158	(10)
Sherry B. Ortner
The Virgin of Guadalupe: A Mexican National Symbol	168	(8)
Eric R. Wolf
Structure, Function, and Interpretation	175	(1)
Introduction	175	(1)
Myth in Primitive Psychology	176	(9)
Bronislaw Malinowski
Folk Dialectics of Nature and Culture	185	(9)
Marshall Sablins
Land Animals, Pure and Impure	194	(16)
Mary Douglas
A Jivaro Version of Totem and Taboo	210	(11)
Claude Levi-Strauss
Text-Building, Epistemology, and Aesthetics in Javanese Shadow Theatre	221	(23)
Alton L. Becker
Moral Inversions and Spaces of Disorder	243	(1)
Introduction	243	(1)
The Winnebago Trickster Figure	244	(14)
Paul Radin
Witchcraft and Sexual Relations: An Exploration in the Social and Semantic Implications of the Structure of Belief	258	(17)
Raymond C. Kelly
The Politics and Poetics of Transgression	275	(15)
Peter Stallybrass
Allon White
Conceptualizing the Cosmos	289	(1)
Introduction	289	(1)
Closure and Multiplication: An Essay on Polynesian Cosmology and Ritual	290	(16)
Alfred Gell
Cosmological Deixis and Amerindian Perspectivism	306	(21)
Eduardo Viveiros de Castro
Part III Praxis: Religious Action	327	(142)
The Movement in Ritual: Emergence	329	(1)
Introduction	329	(1)
The Control of Experience: Symbolic Action	330	(10)
Godfrey Lienhardt
Form and Meaning of Magical Acts	340	(18)
Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah
Liminality and Communitas	358	(18)
Victor Turner
Religion and Personal Experience	375	(1)
Introduction	375	(1)
Fate in Relation to the Social Structure	376	(7)
Meyer Fortes
Medusa's Hair: An Essay on Personal Symbols and Religious Experience	383	(15)
Gananath Obeyesekere
Spirits and Selves in Northern Sudan: The Cultural Therapeutics of Possession and Trance	398	(21)
Janice Boddy
The Poetics of Time in Mayan Divination	419	(13)
Dennis Tedlock
What Ritual Does: The Foundations of Order	431	(1)
Introduction	431	(1)
The Disconnection between Power and Rank as a Process	432	(14)
Maurice Bloch
Enactments of Meaning	446	(23)
Roy A. Rappaport
Part IV Historical Dynamics: Power, Modernity, and Change	469	(102)
Capitalism, Colonialism, Christianity, and Conflict	471	(1)
Introduction	471	(1)
The Genesis of Capitalism amongst a South American Peasantry: Devil's Labor and the Baptism of Money	472	(21)
Michael Taussig
The Colonization of Consciousness	493	(19)
John
Jean Comaroff
Religious Ethics and Politics in the State and the Transnational Scene	511	(1)
Introduction	511	(1)
Civil Religion in America	512	(11)
Robert N. Bellah
``Using the Past to Negate the Present'': Ritual Ethics and State Rationality in Ancient China	523	(13)
Mayfair Mei-hui Yang
Passional Preaching, Aural Sensibility, and the Islamic Revival in Cairo	536	(19)
Charles Hirschkind
Moral Landscapes: Ethical Discourses among Orthodox and Diaspora Jains	555	(16)
Anne Vallely
Part V Research Tools	571	(2)
A Guide to the Literature	573	(12)
Bibliography	585	(29)
Index	614