Ritual Theory, Ritual PracticeRitual studies today figures as a central element of religious discourse for many scholars around the world. Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice, Catherine Bell's sweeping and seminal work on the subject, helped legitimize the field. In this volume, Bell re-examines the issues, methods, and ramifications of our interest in ritual by concentrating on anthropology, sociology, and the history of religions. Now with a new foreword by Diane Jonte-Pace, Bell's work is a must-read for understanding the evolution of the field of ritual studies and its current state. |
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Contents
| 3 | |
| 10 | |
| 13 | |
Constructing Ritual | 19 |
Constructing Meaning | 30 |
Constructing Discourse | 47 |
Notes | 55 |
THE SENSE OF RITUAL | 67 |
Ritual Traditions and Systems | 118 |
Notes | 143 |
RITUAL AND POWER | 169 |
Ritual Control | 171 |
Ritual Belief and Ideology | 182 |
The Power of Ritualization | 197 |
Notes | 224 |
Bibliography | 239 |
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action analysis appears approach appropriate argues argument attempt authority basic behavior beliefs body Bourdieu Cambridge Chicago concept concerned constituted construction context contrast critical cultural defined described develop differentiation discourse discussion distinction distinguish dominant dynamics effective emergence example exist experience explore expression finds focus forces formal Foucault function fundamental Geertz hand hierarchy human ideology important individual integration interpretation involves knowledge language less logic material matter meaning nature notes notion object oppositions organization Outline participants particular pattern performance person perspective play political problems produce question reality relations relationship religion religious resistance rites ritual activities schemes seen sense simply simultaneously situation social social body society specific strategies structure suggests symbolic theoretical Theory of Practice things thought tion tradition Turner understanding University Press values various whole Writing York
Popular passages
Page 147 - The mode of production in material life determines the general character of the social, political and spiritual processes of life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence determines their consciousness.
Page 11 - Johannes Fabian, Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983); James Clifford, The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988).
Page 30 - Whenever Madrasi Brahmans (and non-Brahmans, too, for that matter) wished to exhibit to me some feature of Hinduism, they always referred to, or invited me to see, a particular rite or ceremony in the life cycle, in a temple festival, or in the general sphere of religious and cultural performances. Reflecting on this in the course of my interviews and observations, I found that the more abstract generalizations about Hinduism (my own as well as those I heard) could generally be checked, directly...
Page 172 - Norms and values, on the one hand, become saturated with emotion, while the gross and basic emotions become ennobled through contact with social values.
Page 201 - Every power relationship implies, at least in potentia, a strategy of struggle, in which the two forces are not superimposed, do not lose their specific nature, or do not finally become confused. Each constitutes for the other a kind of permanent limit, a point of possible reversal.
Page 27 - In a ritual, the world as lived and the world as imagined, fused under the agency of a single set of symbolic forms, turn out to be the same world, producing thus that idiosyncratic transformation in one's sense of reality to which Santayana refers in my epigraph.
Page 74 - As such, ritualization is a matter of various culturally specific strategies for setting some activities off from others, for creating and privileging a qualitative distinction between the 'sacred' and the 'profane,' and for ascribing such distinctions to realities thought to transcend the powers of human actors.
References to this book
Bibliographic information
| Title | Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice |
| Author | Catherine Bell |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press, 1992 |
| ISBN | 0199760381, 9780199760381 |
| Length | 288 pages |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |