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Author: Barry Stephenson Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0199943583 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 143
Book Description
Ritual 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: Barry Stephenson Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0199943583 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 143
Book Description
Ritual 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: Ruth-Inge Heinze Publisher: Praeger ISBN: Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 336
Book Description
From time to time immemorial people have performed rituals out of a deep-rooted human need to come into the presence of the Divine. When a theophany is reenacted, harmony and balance, necessary for leading a satisfactory life, are restored to the individual participants and to the community as a whole. This collection of seventeen studies illuminates the power of ritual to facilitate life transitions and includes discussion of rituals associated with childbirth, adolescent initiation, wedding and funeral rites, and rituals used to resolve conflict and reinforce the solidarity of a community. The reader will observe how rituals resolve the tension between modernity and tradition, and will understand why rituals have not lost their power over the millennia.
Author: Harvey Whitehouse Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0192520970 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 251
Book Description
A radical exploration of how rituals have influenced history over thousands of years. From infancy, we copy those around us in order to be like others, to be one with the tribe. Other primates will copy behaviour that leads to transparent benefits, such as access to food, but only humans promiscuously copy actions that have no obvious instrumental purpose. The copying of causally opaque behaviour (rituals) has allowed cultural groups to proliferate over time and space. The frequency and emotional intensity of ritual performances constrains the scale and structure of cultural groups. Rare, traumatic rituals (e.g. painful initiations) produce very strong social cohesion in small, relational groups such as military battalions or local cults whereas daily and weekly rituals (e.g. collective praying in mosques, churches, and synagogues) produce diffuse cohesion in indefinitely expandable communities. This pioneering study presents a theory of how these two 'ritual modes' have influenced the course of human history over many thousands of years and continue to shape the groups we live in today. The resulting programme of research offers a radically new paradigm for the social sciences, one that bridges across disciplinary silos, samples the full diversity of the world's populations, and plumbs our richest sources of information about cultural systems, past and present. In doing so, leading anthropologist Harvey Whitehouse shows how we can modify the way we tackle some of the most pressing challenges of our day, from violent extremism to global heating. All the problems humanity creates are ultimately problems of cooperation. Solving these problems will require social glue. Whitehouse suggests various practical ways in which our growing knowledge about the role of ritual in group bonding can help us achieve a more peaceful and prosperous future, not only for ourselves but for all species who share the planet with us.
Author: Robert Alan Segal Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA ISBN: 0198724705 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 161
Book Description
This Very Short Introduction explores different approaches to myth from several disciplines, including science, religion, philosophy, literature, and psychology. In this new edition, Robert Segal considers both the future study of myth as well as the impact of areas such as cognitive science and the latest approaches to narrative theory.
Author: Henri Hubert Publisher: University of Chicago Press ISBN: 0226356795 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 175
Book Description
Marcel Mauss was the nephew and most distinguished pupil of mile Durkheim, whose review L'Ann e sociologique he helped to found and edit. Henri Hubert was another member of the group of sociologists who developed under the influence of Durkheim. The present book is one of the best-known essays pulbished in L'Ann e sociologique and has been regarded as a model for method and mode of interpretation. Its subject is at the very center of the comparative study of religion. The authors describe a basic sacrifice drawn from Indian sources and show what is fundamental and constant, comparing Indian and Hebrew practices in particular, then Greek and Roman, then additional practices from many eras and cultures.
Author: J. Rasmus Brandt Publisher: Oxbow Books ISBN: 1782976396 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 481
Book Description
The forms by which a deceased person may be brought to rest are as many as there are causes of death. In most societies the disposal of the corpse is accompanied by some form of celebration or ritual which may range from a simple act of deportment in solitude to the engagement of large masses of people in laborious and creative festivities. In a funerary context the term ritual may be taken to represent a process that incorporates all the actions performed and thoughts expressed in connection with a dying and dead person, from the preparatory pre-death stages to the final deposition of the corpse and the post-mortem stages of grief and commemoration. The contributions presented here are focused not on the examination of different funerary practices, their function and meaning, but on the changes of such rituals _ how and when they occurred and how they may be explained. Based on case studies from a range of geographical regions and from different prehistoric and historical periods, a range of key themes are examined concerning belief and ritual, body and deposition, place, performance and commemoration, exploring a complex web of practices.
Author: Barbara H. Fiese Publisher: Yale University Press ISBN: 9780300116960 Category : Family & Relationships Languages : en Pages : 184
Book Description
While family life has conspicuously changed in the past fifty years, it would be a mistake to conclude that family routines and rituals have lost their meaning. In this book Barbara H. Fiese, a clinical and developmental psychologist, examines how the practices of diverse family routines and the meanings created through rituals have evolved to meet the demands of today’s busy families. She discusses and integrates various research literatures and draws on her own studies to show how family routines and rituals influence physical and mental health, translate cultural values, and may even be used therapeutically. Looking at a range of family activities from bedtime stories to special holiday meals, Fiese relates such occasions to significant issues including parenting competence, child adjustment, and relational well-being. She concludes by underscoring the importance of flexible approaches to family time to promote healthier families and communities.
Author: Roy A. Rappaport Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 9780521296908 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 566
Book Description
Roy 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: Barry Stephenson
Author: Barry Stephenson
Author: Ruth-Inge Heinze
Author: Harvey Whitehouse
Author: Jacob K. Olupona
Author: Robert Alan Segal
Author: Henri Hubert
Author: J. Rasmus Brandt
Author: Barbara H. Fiese
Author: Roy A. Rappaport
Author: Eftychia Stavrianopoulou