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Author: Adam B. Seligman
Publisher: OUP USA
Published: 2008-02-21
Total Pages: 247
ISBN-13: 9780195336009
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDrawing on examples from many places and times, this work argues for the continuing tension across historical contexts between movements emphasizing ritual and movements emphasizing sincerity. It contends that our contemporary age has, at great risk, downplayed the importance of ritual.
Author: Adam B. Seligman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2008-03-24
Total Pages: 318
ISBN-13: 0199887411
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis pioneering, interdisciplinary work shows how rituals allow us to live in a perennially imperfect world. Drawing on a variety of cultural settings, the authors utilize psychoanalytic and anthropological perspectives to describe how ritual--like play--creates "as if" worlds, rooted in the imaginative capacity of the human mind to create a subjunctive universe. The ability to cross between imagined worlds is central to the human capacity for empathy. Ritual, they claim, defines the boundaries of these imagined worlds, including those of empathy and other realms of human creativity, such as music, architecture and literature. The authors juxtapose this ritual orientation to a "sincere" search for unity and wholeness. The sincere world sees fragmentation and incoherence as signs of inauthenticity that must be overcome. Our modern world has accepted the sincere viewpoint at the expense of ritual, dismissing ritual as mere convention. In response, the authors show how the conventions of ritual allow us to live together in a broken world. Ritual is work, endless work. But it is among the most important things that we humans do.
Author: Adam B. Seligman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2008-03-24
Total Pages: 246
ISBN-13: 0199714576
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis pioneering, interdisciplinary work shows how rituals allow us to live in a perennially imperfect world. Drawing on a variety of cultural settings, the authors utilize psychoanalytic and anthropological perspectives to describe how ritual--like play--creates "as if" worlds, rooted in the imaginative capacity of the human mind to create a subjunctive universe. The ability to cross between imagined worlds is central to the human capacity for empathy. Ritual, they claim, defines the boundaries of these imagined worlds, including those of empathy and other realms of human creativity, such as music, architecture and literature. The authors juxtapose this ritual orientation to a "sincere" search for unity and wholeness. The sincere world sees fragmentation and incoherence as signs of inauthenticity that must be overcome. Our modern world has accepted the sincere viewpoint at the expense of ritual, dismissing ritual as mere convention. In response, the authors show how the conventions of ritual allow us to live together in a broken world. Ritual is work, endless work. But it is among the most important things that we humans do.
Author: Adam B. Seligman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2012-08-29
Total Pages: 256
ISBN-13: 019991527X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe authors argue that resorting to rules and categories cannot adequately address the pervasive problems of ambiguity, difference, and boundaries - that is to say, the challenge of pluralism in our world. They show that alternative, more particularistic modes of dealing with ambiguity through ritual and shared experience may attune more closely with contemporary problems of living with difference.
Author: Barry Stephenson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2015-01-28
Total Pages: 143
ISBN-13: 0199943583
DOWNLOAD EBOOKRitual is part of what it means to be human. Like sports, music, and drama, ritual defines and enriches culture, putting those who practice it in touch with sources of value and meaning larger than themselves. Ritual is unavoidable, yet it holds a place in modern life that is decidedly ambiguous. What is ritual? What does it do? Is it useful? What are the various kinds of ritual? Is ritual tradition bound and conservative or innovative and transformational? Alongside description of a number of specific rites, this Very Short Introduction explores ritual from both theoretical and historical perspectives. Barry Stephenson focuses on the places where ritual touches everyday life: in politics and power; moments of transformation in the life cycle; as performance and embodiment. He also discusses the boundaries of ritual, and how and why certain behaviors have been studied as ritual while others have not. Stephenson shows how ritual is an important vehicle for group and identity formation; how it generates and transmits beliefs and values; how it can be used to exploit and oppress; and how it has served as a touchstone for thinking about cultural origins and historical change. Encompassing the breadth and depth of modern ritual studies, Barry Stephenson's Very Short Introduction also develops a narrative of ritual's place in social and cultural life. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Author: Orlando Patterson
Publisher: Civitas Books
Published: 1999-12-10
Total Pages: 372
ISBN-13: 9781582430393
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn the first essay, Patterson analyzes the very latest survey data to delineate the different attitudes, behaviors, and circumstances of Afro-American men and women, dissecting both the external and internal causes for the great disparities he finds.In the second essay, Patterson focuses on the lynching of Afro-American boys and men during the decades after Reconstruction, particularly on the substantial number of cases that constituted apparent ritual human sacrifice. As no one has done before, Patterson reveals how the complex interplay between Christian sacrificial symbolism and the deep recesses of post-bellum Southern culture resulted in some of the most shameful, barbaric events in American history.The third essay brings us into the late twentieth century, with an investigation of the various images of Afro-American men portrayed by the media. From the demigod (Michael Jordan) to the demon (Colin Ferguson) to the demigod-turned-demon (O. J. Simpson) and the crossers of racial and gender boundaries (Michael Jackson and Dennis Rodman)—all contribute to the cultural complications of our contemporary society.Rituals of Blood advances Patterson's new model of ethnic relations that opens American society to a new and freer dialogue.
Author: Ute Hüsken
Publisher: BRILL
Published: 2007
Total Pages: 390
ISBN-13: 9004158111
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis volume investigates the implications of breaking ritual rules, of failed performances and of the extinction of ritual systems. The essays thus break new ground in the comparative analysis of rituals and introduce new perspectives to ritual studies.
Author: Adam B. Seligman
Publisher: OUP USA
Published: 2008-02-21
Total Pages: 246
ISBN-13: 0195336003
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDrawing on examples from many places and times, this work argues for the continuing tension across historical contexts between movements emphasizing ritual and movements emphasizing sincerity. It contends that our contemporary age has, at great risk, downplayed the importance of ritual.
Author: Roy A. Rappaport
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 1999-03-25
Total Pages: 566
ISBN-13: 9780521296908
DOWNLOAD EBOOKRoy Rappaport argues that religion is central to the continuing evolution of life, although it has been been displaced from its original position of intellectual authority by the rise of modern science. His book, which could be construed as in some degree religious as well as about religion, insists that religion can and must be reconciled with science. Combining adaptive and cognitive approaches to the study of humankind, he mounts a comprehensive analysis of religion's evolutionary significance, seeing it as co-extensive with the invention of language and hence of culture as we know it. At the same time he assembles the fullest study yet of religion's main component, ritual, which constructs the conceptions which we take to be religious and has been central in the making of humanity's adaptation. The text amounts to a manual for effective ritual, illustrated by examples drawn from anthropology, history, philosophy, comparative religion, and elsewhere.
Author: Pamela Perskin Noblitt
Publisher: Robert Reed Publishers
Published: 2008
Total Pages: 562
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAllegations of ritual abuse are universal and mental health professionals, theologians, law enforcers, scholars, victim advocates, and others struggle to comprehend the enormity of the devastation left in the wake of these heinous acts. Ritual Abuse in the Twenty-first Century addresses the concerns that naturally evolve from any discussion of this phenomenon from the perspectives of professionals, advocates, and survivors from around the world (eight countries, seven states in the U.S.) * How valid are the survivors' stories? * Is there evidence? * What are the consequences of these acts to the individual and society? * Why have these allegations been ignored or discredited whenever they have surfaced? The authors of these chapters respond to these and other questions in an effort to illustrate the constellation of psychological, health, legal, criminal, societal, and spiritual ramifications of ritual abuse. Chapters address current issues including ritually based crime, civil suits involving allegations of ritual abuse, that are universal. The value of understanding ritual trauma for diagnostic and treatment applications is discussed.
