Theater in a Crowded Fire: Ritual and Spirituality at Burning Man

Every summer, thousands gather from around the world in the blistering heat of Nevada's Block Rock Desert for the seven-day celebration of art, community, and fire known as Burning Man. Culminating in the spectacular incineration of a wooden effigy, this festival is grand-scale theater of self-expression, personal transformation, eclectic spirituality, syncretic ritual, communal bonding, and cultural renewal. In this engrossing ethnography of the Burning Man phenomenon, Lee Gilmore explores...