Ritual in Its Own Right: Exploring the Dynamics of Transformation
"This edited volume, full of new and original perspectives, makes an important contribution to the anthropological and historical study of ritual. . . . this fine collection of essays is a challenging and provocative contribution to the study of ritual, and certainly one that ought to change the ways in which anthropologists conceive of ritual." - Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute Historically, canonic studies of ritual have discussed and explained ritual organization, action, and transformation primarily as representations of broader cultural and social orders. In the present, as in the past, less attention is given to the power of ritual to organize and effect transformation through its own dynamics. Breaking with convention, the contributors to this volume were asked to discuss ritual first and foremost in relation to itself, in its own right, and only then in relation to its socio-cultural context. The results attest to the variable capacities of rites to effect transformation through themselves, and to the study of phenomena in their own right as a fertile approach to comprehending ritual dynamics. Born in Montreal, Don Handelman is Sarah Allen Shaine Professor of Anthropology & Sociology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. He has written extensively on ritual, play, expressive culture, and bureaucratic logic and the modern state. Galina Lindquist was born in Russia, and trained as anthropologist in Sweden. She received her degree at the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Stockholm, for the study of urban shamans in Scandinavia. Since then she has done work in medical anthropology and anthropology of religion, with a special focus on folk religious and healing practices.
1123402203
Ritual in Its Own Right: Exploring the Dynamics of Transformation
"This edited volume, full of new and original perspectives, makes an important contribution to the anthropological and historical study of ritual. . . . this fine collection of essays is a challenging and provocative contribution to the study of ritual, and certainly one that ought to change the ways in which anthropologists conceive of ritual." - Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute Historically, canonic studies of ritual have discussed and explained ritual organization, action, and transformation primarily as representations of broader cultural and social orders. In the present, as in the past, less attention is given to the power of ritual to organize and effect transformation through its own dynamics. Breaking with convention, the contributors to this volume were asked to discuss ritual first and foremost in relation to itself, in its own right, and only then in relation to its socio-cultural context. The results attest to the variable capacities of rites to effect transformation through themselves, and to the study of phenomena in their own right as a fertile approach to comprehending ritual dynamics. Born in Montreal, Don Handelman is Sarah Allen Shaine Professor of Anthropology & Sociology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. He has written extensively on ritual, play, expressive culture, and bureaucratic logic and the modern state. Galina Lindquist was born in Russia, and trained as anthropologist in Sweden. She received her degree at the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Stockholm, for the study of urban shamans in Scandinavia. Since then she has done work in medical anthropology and anthropology of religion, with a special focus on folk religious and healing practices.
34.95 In Stock
Ritual in Its Own Right: Exploring the Dynamics of Transformation

Ritual in Its Own Right: Exploring the Dynamics of Transformation

Ritual in Its Own Right: Exploring the Dynamics of Transformation

Ritual in Its Own Right: Exploring the Dynamics of Transformation

Paperback(New Edition)

$34.95 
  • SHIP THIS ITEM
    Qualifies for Free Shipping
  • PICK UP IN STORE
    Check Availability at Nearby Stores

Related collections and offers


Overview

"This edited volume, full of new and original perspectives, makes an important contribution to the anthropological and historical study of ritual. . . . this fine collection of essays is a challenging and provocative contribution to the study of ritual, and certainly one that ought to change the ways in which anthropologists conceive of ritual." - Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute Historically, canonic studies of ritual have discussed and explained ritual organization, action, and transformation primarily as representations of broader cultural and social orders. In the present, as in the past, less attention is given to the power of ritual to organize and effect transformation through its own dynamics. Breaking with convention, the contributors to this volume were asked to discuss ritual first and foremost in relation to itself, in its own right, and only then in relation to its socio-cultural context. The results attest to the variable capacities of rites to effect transformation through themselves, and to the study of phenomena in their own right as a fertile approach to comprehending ritual dynamics. Born in Montreal, Don Handelman is Sarah Allen Shaine Professor of Anthropology & Sociology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. He has written extensively on ritual, play, expressive culture, and bureaucratic logic and the modern state. Galina Lindquist was born in Russia, and trained as anthropologist in Sweden. She received her degree at the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Stockholm, for the study of urban shamans in Scandinavia. Since then she has done work in medical anthropology and anthropology of religion, with a special focus on folk religious and healing practices.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781845450519
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Publication date: 01/01/2005
Edition description: New Edition
Pages: 242
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.51(d)

About the Author

Born in Montreal, Don Handelman is Sarah Allen Shaine Professor of Anthropology & Sociology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Manchester in 1971. He has been a Fellow of the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Study, the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study, Collegium Budapest: Institute for Advanced Study, and the Institute for Advanced Study at The Hebrew University, and the Olof Palme Visiting Professor of the Swedish Social Science Research Council. His field research has been in the Great Basin, Newfoundland, Israel, and Andhra Pradesh. He has written extensively on ritual, play, expressive culture, and bureaucratic logic and the modern state, and is the author of Models and Mirrors: Towards an Anthropology of Public Events, Berghahn Books, 1998; Nationalism and the Israeli State: Bureaucratic Logic in Public Events, 2004; and with David Shulman is the coauthor of God Inside Out: Siva's Game of Dice (1997) and Siva in the Forest of Pines: An Essay on Sorcery and Self Knowledge (2004).

Galina Lindquist (1955-2008) was a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University. She received her Ph.D. in 1998, and did fieldwork among neo-shamans in Sweden, among alternative healing practitioners and patients in Moscow, and among shamans and lamas in Tyva, Southern Siberia. She authored Conjuring Hope: Healing and Magic in Contemporary Russia (2006), The Quest for the Authentic Shaman: Multiple Meanings of Shamanism on a Siberian Journey (2006), co-edited four volumes, and published numerous articles in professional journals.

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction: Why Ritual in Its Own Right? How So?
Don Handelman

PART I: THEORIZING RITUAL: AGAINST REPRSENTATION, AGAINST MEANING

Chapter 1. Ritual Dynamics and Virtual Practice: Beyond Representation and Meaning
Bruce Kapferer

Chapter 2. Otherwise Than Meaning: On the Generosity of Ritual
Don Seeman

PART II: EXPERIMENTING WITH RITUAL: NATIVES HERE, NATIVES THERE

Chapter 3. The Red and the Black: A Practical Experiment for Thinking about Ritual
Michael Houseman

Chapter 4. Partial Discontinuity: The Mark of Ritual
André Iteanu

PART III: RITUAL AND EMERGENCE: HISTORICAL, PHENOMENAL

Chapter 5. Religious Weeping as Ritual in the Medieval West
Piroska Nagy

Chapter 6. Enjoying an Emerging Alternative World: Ritual in Its Own Ludic Right
André Droogers

PART IV: HEALING IN ITS OWN RIGHT: SPIRIT WORLDS

Chapter 7. Bringing the Soul Back to the Self: Soul Retrieval in Neo-shamanism
Galina Lindquist

Chapter 8. Treating the Sick with a Morality Play: The Kardecist-Spiritist Disobsession in Brazil
Sidney M. Greenfield

PART V: PHILOSOPHICALLY SPEAKING

Chapter 9. The Tacit Logic of Ritual Embodiments: Rappaport and Polanyi between Thick and Thin
Robert E. Innis

Epilogue: Toing and Froing the Social
Don Handelman

Notes on Contributors
Index

From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews