Ritual

by Stewart, Pamela; Strathern, Andrew

• ISBN13: 9781441185693
• ISBN10: 1441185690
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2014-03-13
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

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.

Author Biography

Pamela J. Stewart is Senior Research Associate and Co-Director of the Cromie Burn Research Unit, in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh, USA, and Co-Editor of the Journal of Ritual Studies and the Ritual Studies Book Series.

Andrew Strathern is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh, USA, and Co-Editor of the Journal of Ritual Studies and the Ritual Studies Book Series.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: Problems of Definition
2. Early Grand Theorists
3. The Fieldwork Revolution: Malinowski, Racliffe-Brown and Functionalism
4. Structure and Process: Victor Turner
5. Ancestor Worship: Meyer Fortes and Psychological Interpretations
6. Sacrifice
7. Contemporary Processual and Post-Processual Approaches: Questions of Meanings and Exegesis 8. Performance and Perfomativity
9. New Cognitive Approaches: Old Wine in New Bottles?
10. Conclusions: Back to Framing and Values
Bibliography
Index