Rituals of Prosecution
Rituals of Prosecution

Author: Jane K. Wickersham

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2012-01-01

Total Pages: 441

ISBN-13: 1442645008

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During the Counter-Reformation, inquisition manual authors working in Italian lands adapted the Catholic Church's traditional tactics of inquisitorial procedure, which had been formulated in the medieval period, to the prosecution of philo-Protestants. Through a comparison of the texts of four such authors to contemporary inquisition processes, Jane K. Wickersham situates the Roman inquisition's prosecution of philo-Protestants within the larger framework of the complex religious upheavals of the sixteenth century. Identifying the critical role played by ritual practice in discovering and prosecuting heretical subjects, Wickersham uncovers two core reasons for its use: first, as a practical means of prosecuting a variety of philo-Protestant beliefs, and second, as an approach firmly grounded within the Catholic Church's history of prosecuting heresy. Finally, Rituals of Prosecution provides an in-depth examination of the inquisitorial processes of urban residents from humble socio-economic backgrounds, providing new insight into how the prosecution of ordinary people was conducted in the early modern era.

The Law of Possession
The Law of Possession

Author: William S. Sax

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2015-11-24

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 0190493658

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Rituals combining healing with spirit possession and court-like proceedings are found around the world and throughout history. For example, a person suffers from an illness that cannot be cured, and in order to be healed he performs a ritual involving prosecution and defense, a judge and witnesses. Divine beings give evidence through human oracles, spirits possess their human victims and are exorcized, and local gods intervene to provide healing and justice. Such practices seem to be the very antithesis of modernity and many modern, secular states have systematically attempted to eliminate them. Why are such rituals largely absent from modern societies, and what happens to them when the state attempts to expunge them from their health and justice systems, or even to criminalize them? Despite the prevalence of rituals involving some or all of these elements, The Law of Possession represents the first attempt to compare and analyze them systematically. The volume brings together historical and contemporary case studies from East Asia, South Asia, and Africa, and argues that, despite consistent attempts by states to discourage, eliminate, and criminalize them, such rituals persist and even thrive because they meet widespread human needs.

The Cultural Politics of Obeah
The Cultural Politics of Obeah

Author: Diana Paton

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2015-08-10

Total Pages: 377

ISBN-13: 1107025656

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A study of the importance of debates about obeah, and state suppression of it, for Caribbean struggles about freedom and citizenship.

Blood Libel in Late Imperial Russia
Blood Libel in Late Imperial Russia

Author: Robert Weinberg

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2013-11-20

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 0253011140

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This “riveting history . . . brings us face to face with this notorious trial” of a Russian Jew who was framed for ritual murder in 1913 (Jewish Book World). On Sunday, March 20, 1911, children playing in a cave near Kiev made a gruesome discovery: the blood-soaked body of a partially clad boy. After right-wing groups asserted that the killing was a ritual murder, the police, with no direct evidence, arrested Menachem Mendel Beilis, a thirty-nine-year-old Jewish manager at a factory near the site of the crime. Beilis’s trial in 1913 quickly became an international cause célèbre. The jury ultimately acquitted Beilis but held that the crime had the hallmarks of a ritual murder. Robert Weinberg’s account of the Beilis Affair explores the reasons why the tsarist government framed Beilis, shedding light on the excesses of antisemitism in late Imperial Russia. It is a gripping narrative culled from trial transcripts, newspaper articles, Beilis’s memoirs, and archival sources, many appearing in English for the first time.

Visualizing Sensuous Suffering and Affective Pain in Early Modern Europe and the Spanish Americas
Visualizing Sensuous Suffering and Affective Pain in Early Modern Europe and the Spanish Americas

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2018-01-03

Total Pages: 462

ISBN-13: 9004360689

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Visualizing Sensuous Suffering and Affective Pain in Early Modern Europe and the Spanish Americas is a trans-cultural collection of studies on visual treatments of the phenomena of suffering and pain in early modern culture. Ranging geographically from Italy, Spain, and the Low Countries to Chile, Mexico, and the Philippines and chronologically from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries, these studies variously consider pain and suffering as somatic, emotional, and psychological experiences. From examination of bodies shown victimized by brutal public torture to the sublimation of physical suffering conveyed through the incised lines of Counter-Reformation engravings, the authors consider depictions of pain and suffering as conduits to the divine or as guides to social behaviour; indeed, often the two functions overlap.

The Restorative Justice Ritual
The Restorative Justice Ritual

Author: Lindsey Pointer

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-12-23

Total Pages: 151

ISBN-13: 1000331873

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Restorative justice is an innovative approach to responding to crime and conflict that shifts the focus away from laws and punishment to instead consider the harm caused and what is needed to repair that harm and make things right. Interest in restorative justice is rapidly expanding, with new applications continuously emerging around the world. The restorative philosophy and conference process have shown great promise in providing a justice response that heals individuals and strengthens the community. Still, a few key questions remain unanswered. First, how is the personal and relational transformation apparent in the restorative justice process achieved? What can be done to safeguard and enhance that effectiveness? Second, can restorative justice satisfy the wider public’s need for a reaffirmation of communal norms following a crime, particularly in comparison to the criminal trial? And finally, given its primary focus on making amends at an interpersonal level, does restorative justice routinely fail to address larger, structural injustices? This book engages with these three critical questions through an understanding of restorative justice as a ritual. It proffers three dominant ritual functions related to the performance of justice: the normative, the transformative, and the proleptic. Two justice rituals, namely, the criminal trial and the restorative justice conference, are examined through this framework in order to understand how each process fulfills, or fails to fulfill, the multifaceted human need for justice. The book will be of interest to students, academics, and practitioners working in the areas of Restorative Justice, Criminal Law, and Criminology.

The Spirits and the Law
The Spirits and the Law

Author: Kate Ramsey

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2014-02-07

Total Pages: 446

ISBN-13: 0226703819

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Vodou has often served as a scapegoat for Haiti’s problems, from political upheavals to natural disasters. This tradition of scapegoating stretches back to the nation’s founding and forms part of a contest over the legitimacy of the religion, both beyond and within Haiti’s borders. The Spirits and the Law examines that vexed history, asking why, from 1835 to 1987, Haiti banned many popular ritual practices. To find out, Kate Ramsey begins with the Haitian Revolution and its aftermath. Fearful of an independent black nation inspiring similar revolts, the United States, France, and the rest of Europe ostracized Haiti. Successive Haitian governments, seeking to counter the image of Haiti as primitive as well as contain popular organization and leadership, outlawed “spells” and, later, “superstitious practices.” While not often strictly enforced, these laws were at times the basis for attacks on Vodou by the Haitian state, the Catholic Church, and occupying U.S. forces. Beyond such offensives, Ramsey argues that in prohibiting practices considered essential for maintaining relations with the spirits, anti-Vodou laws reinforced the political marginalization, social stigmatization, and economic exploitation of the Haitian majority. At the same time, she examines the ways communities across Haiti evaded, subverted, redirected, and shaped enforcement of the laws. Analyzing the long genealogy of anti-Vodou rhetoric, Ramsey thoroughly dissects claims that the religion has impeded Haiti’s development.