Download or read book Elements of Ritual and Violence written by Margo Kitts and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-31 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ritualized violence is by definition not haphazard or random, but seemingly intentional and often ceremonial. It has a long history in religious practice, as attested in texts and artifacts from the earliest civilizations. It is equally evident in the behaviors of some contemporary religious activists and within initiatory practices ongoing in many regions of the world. Given its longevity and cultural expanse, ritualized violence presumably exerts a pull deeply into the sociology, psychology, anthropology, theology, perhaps even ontology of its practitioners, but this is not transparent. This short volume will sketch the subject of ritualized violence, that is, it will summarize some established theories about ritual and about violence, and will ponder a handful of striking instantiations of their link.
Download or read book Elements of Ritual and Violence written by Margo Kitts and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-26 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ritualized violence is by definition not haphazard or random, but seemingly intentional and often ceremonial. It has a long history in religious practice, as attested in texts and artifacts from the earliest civilizations. It is equally evident in the behaviors of some contemporary religious activists and within initiatory practices ongoing in many regions of the world. Given its longevity and cultural expanse, ritualized violence presumably exerts a pull deeply into the sociology, psychology, anthropology, theology, perhaps even ontology of its practitioners, but this is not transparent. This short volume will sketch the subject of ritualized violence, that is, it will summarize some established theories about ritual and about violence, and will ponder a handful of striking instantiations of their link.
Download or read book Ritual Emotion Violence written by Elliott B. Weininger and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-07-27 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Microsociologists seek to capture social life as it is experienced, and in recent decades no one has championed the microsociological approach more fiercely than Randall Collins. The pieces in this exciting volume offer fresh and original insights into key aspects of Collins’ thought, and of microsociology more generally. The introductory essay by Elliot B. Weininger and Omar Lizardo provides a lucid overview of the key premises this perspective. Ethnographic papers by Randol Contreras, using data from New York, and Philippe Bourgois and Laurie Kain Hart, using data from Philadelphia, examine the social logic of violence in street-level narcotics markets. Both draw on heavily on Collins’ microsociological account of the features of social situations that tend to engender violence. In the second section of the book, a study by Paul DiMaggio, Clark Bernier, Charles Heckscher, and David Mimno tackles the question of whether electronically mediated interaction exhibits the ritualization which, according to Collins, is a common feature of face-to-face encounters. Their results suggest that, at least under certain circumstances, digitally mediated interaction may foster social solidarity in a manner similar to face-to-face interaction. A chapter by Simone Polillo picks up from Collins’ work in the sociology of knowledge, examining multiple ways in which social network structures can engender intellectual creativity. The third section of the book contains papers that critically but sympathetically assess key tenets of microsociology. Jonathan H. Turner argues that the radically microsociological perspective developed by Collins will better serve the social scientific project if it is embedded in a more comprehensive paradigm, one that acknowledges the macro- and meso-levels of social and cultural life. A chapter by David Gibson presents empirical analyses of decisions by state leaders concerning whether or not to use force to deal with internal or external foes, suggesting that Collins’ model of interaction ritual can only partially illuminate the dynamics of these highly consequential political moments. Work by Erika Summers-Effler and Justin Van Ness seeks to systematize and broaden the scope of Collins’ theory of interaction, by including in it encounters that depart from the ritual model in important ways. In a final, reflective chapter, Randall Collins himself highlights the promise and future of microsociology. Clearly written, these pieces offer cutting-edge thinking on some of the crucial theoretical and empirical issues in sociology today.
Download or read book Blood and Beauty written by Rex Koontz and published by Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press. This book was released on 2009-12-31 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Warfare, ritual human sacrifice, and the rubber ballgame have been the traditional categories through which scholars have examined organized violence in the artistic and material records of ancient Mesoamerica and Central America. This volume expands those traditional categories to include such concerns as gladiatorial-like boxing combats, investiture rites, trophy-head taking and display, dark shamanism, and the subjective pain inherent in acts of violence. Each author examines organized violence as a set of practices grounded in cultural understandings, even when the violence threatens the limits of those understandings. The authors scrutinize the representation of, and relationships between, different types of organized violence, as well as the implications of those activities, which can include the unexpected, such as violence as a means of determining and curing illness, and the use of violence in negotiation strategies.
Download or read book Latin American Indigenous Warfare and Ritual Violence written by Richard J. Chacon and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2019-04-02 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This groundbreaking multidisciplinary book presents significant essays on historical indigenous violence in Latin America from Tierra del Fuego to central Mexico. The collection explores those uniquely human motivations and environmental variables that have led to the native peoples of Latin America engaging in warfare and ritual violence since antiquity. Based on an American Anthropological Association symposium, this book collects twelve contributions from sixteen authors, all of whom are scholars at the forefront of their fields of study. All of the chapters advance our knowledge of the causes, extent, and consequences of indigenous violence—including ritualized violence—in Latin America. Each major historical/cultural group in Latin America is addressed by at least one contributor. Incorporating the results of dozens of years of research, this volume documents evidence of warfare, violent conflict, and human sacrifice from the fifteenth century to the twentieth, including incidents that occurred before European contact. Together the chapters present a convincing argument that warfare and ritual violence have been woven into the fabric of life in Latin America since remote antiquity. For the first time, expert subject-area work on indigenous violence—archaeological, osteological, ethnographic, historical, and forensic—has been assembled in one volume. Much of this work has heretofore been dispersed across various countries and languages. With its collection into one English-language volume, all future writers—regardless of their discipline or point of view—will have a source to consult for further research. CONTENTS Acknowledgments Introduction Richard J. Chacon and Rubén G. Mendoza 1. Status Rivalry and Warfare in the Development and Collapse of Classic Maya Civilization Matt O’Mansky and Arthur A. Demarest 2. Aztec Militarism and Blood Sacrifice: The Archaeology and Ideology of Ritual Violence Rubén G. Mendoza 3. Territorial Expansion and Primary State Formation in Oaxaca, Mexico Charles S. Spencer 4. Images of Violence in Mesoamerican Mural Art Donald McVicker 5. Circum-Caribbean Chiefly Warfare Elsa M. Redmond 6. Conflict and Conquest in Pre-Hispanic Andean South America: Archaeological Evidence from Northern Coastal Peru John W. Verano 7. The Inti Raymi Festival among the Cotacachi and Otavalo of Highland Ecuador: Blood for the Earth Richard J. Chacon, Yamilette Chacon, and Angel Guandinango 8. Upper Amazonian Warfare Stephen Beckerman and James Yost 9. Complexity and Causality in Tupinambá Warfare William Balée 10. Hunter-Gatherers’ Aboriginal Warfare in Western Chaco Marcela Mendoza 11. The Struggle for Social Life in Fuego-Patagonia Alfredo Prieto and Rodrigo Cárdenas 12. Ethical Considerations and Conclusions Regarding Indigenous Warfare and Ritual Violence in Latin America Richard J. Chacon and Rubén G. Mendoza References About the Contributors Index
Download or read book Ritual and Violence written by Graeme Murdock and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2012-03-08 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays seeks to offer new insights and approaches to the relationship and significance of religion and violence as well as paying tribute to the immense contribution made in this field by the writings of Natalie Zemon Davis.
Download or read book Sanctified Violence in Homeric Society written by Margo Kitts and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-08-23 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Sanctified Violence in Homeric Society, Margo Kitts focuses on oath-making narratives found in the Iliad through which she articulates a theory of ritualized violence. She analyzes ritual paradigms, metaphors, fictions, and poetic registers as oath-making principles, which she then traces through Homeric references and texts from the ancient New East. Discussing ritual features that are common to acts of religious violence throughout the world, Kitts makes use of the theory of ritual performance as communication.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Violence written by Mark Juergensmeyer and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-11 with total page 670 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Violence has always played a part in the religious imagination, from symbols and myths to legendary battles, from colossal wars to the theater of terrorism. The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Violence surveys intersections between religion and violence throughout history and around the world. The forty original essays in this volume include overviews of major religious traditions, showing how violence is justified within the literary and theological foundations of the tradition, how it is used symbolically and in ritual practice, and how social acts of violence and warfare have been justified by religious ideas. The essays also examine patterns and themes relating to religious violence, such as sacrifice and martyrdom, which are explored in cross-disciplinary or regional analyses; and offer major analytic approaches, from literary to social scientific studies. The contributors to this volume--innovative thinkers who are forging new directions in theory and analysis related to religion and violence--provide novel insights into this important field of studies. By mapping out the whole field of religion and violence, The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Violence will prove an authoritative source for students and scholars for years to come.
Download or read book Violence and the Sacred written by René Girard and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2005-04-13 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: René Girard (1923-) was Professor of French Language, Literature and Civilization at Stanford Unviersity from 1981 until his retirement in 1995. Violence and the Sacred is Girard's brilliant study of human evil. Girard explores violence as it is represented and occurs throughout history, literature and myth. Girard's forceful and thought-provoking analyses of Biblical narrative, Greek tragedy and the lynchings and pogroms propagated by contemporary states illustrate his central argument that violence belongs to everyone and is at the heart of the sacred. Translated by Patrick Gregory>
Download or read book North American Indigenous Warfare and Ritual Violence written by Richard J. Chacon and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2007-09-15 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite evidence of warfare and violent conflict in pre-Columbian North America, scholars argue that the scale and scope of Native American violence is exaggerated. They contend that scholarly misrepresentation has denigrated indigenous peoples when in fact they lived together in peace and harmony. In rebutting that contention, this groundbreaking book presents clear evidence—from multiple academic disciplines—that indigenous populations engaged in warfare and ritual violence long before European contact. In ten well-documented and thoroughly researched chapters, fourteen leading scholars dispassionately describe sources and consequences of Amerindian warfare and violence, including ritual violence. Originally presented at an American Anthropological Association symposium, their findings construct a convincing case that bloodshed and killing have been woven into the fabric of indigenous life in North America for many centuries. The editors argue that a failure to acknowledge the roles of warfare and violence in the lives of indigenous North Americans is itself a vestige of colonial repression—depriving native warriors of their history of armed resistance. These essays document specific acts of Native American violence across the North American continent. Including contributions from anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, and ethnographers, they argue not only that violence existed but also that it was an important and frequently celebrated component of Amerindian life. CONTENTS Acknowledgments Introduction Richard J. Chacon and Rubén G. Mendoza 1. Traditional Native Warfare in Western Alaska Ernest S. Burch Jr. 2. Barbarism and Ardour of War from the Tenderest Years”: Cree-Inuit Warfare in the Hudson Bay Region Charles A. Bishop and Victor P. Lytwyn 3. Aboriginal Warfare on the Northwest Coast: Did the Potlatch Replace Warfare? Joan A. Lovisek 4. Ethnohistoric Descriptions of Chumash Warfare John R. Johnson 5. Documenting Conflict in the Prehistoric Pueblo Southwest Polly Schaafsma 6. Cahokia and the Evidence for Late Pre-Columbian War in the North American Midcontinent Thomas E. Emerson 7. Iroquois-Huron Warfare Dean R. Snow 8. Desecrating the Sacred Ancestor Temples: Chiefly Conflict and Violence in the American Southeast David H. Dye and Adam King 9. Warfare, Population, and Food Production in Prehistoric Eastern North America George R. Milner 10. The Osteological Evidence for Indigenous Warfare in North America Patricia M. Lambert 11. Ethical Considerations and Conclusions Regarding Indigenous Warfare and Violence in North America Richard J. Chacon and Rubén G. Mendoza References About the Contributors Index
Download or read book Ritual A Very Short Introduction written by Barry Stephenson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-01-28 with total page 143 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Ritual Violence in the Ancient Andes written by Haagen D. Klaus and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2016-07-26 with total page 486 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traditions of sacrifice exist in almost every human culture and often embody a society's most meaningful religious and symbolic acts. Ritual violence was particularly varied and enduring in the prehistoric South American Andes, where human lives, animals, and material objects were sacrificed in secular rites or as offerings to the divine. Spectacular discoveries of sacrificial sites containing the victims of violent rituals have drawn ever-increasing attention to ritual sacrifice within Andean archaeology. Responding to this interest, this volume provides the first regional overview of ritual killing on the pre-Hispanic north coast of Peru, where distinct forms and diverse trajectories of ritual violence developed during the final 1,800 years of prehistory. Presenting original research that blends empirical approaches, iconographic interpretations, and contextual analyses, the contributors address four linked themes—the historical development and regional variation of north coast sacrifice from the early first millennium AD to the European conquest; a continuum of ritual violence that spans people, animals, and objects; the broader ritual world of sacrifice, including rites both before and after violent offering; and the use of diverse scientific tools, archaeological information, and theoretical interpretations to study sacrifice. This research proposes a wide range of new questions that will shape the research agenda in the coming decades, while fostering a nuanced, scientific, and humanized approach to the archaeology of ritual violence that is applicable to archaeological contexts around the world.
Download or read book The Interpreters Ritual Violence and Social Regeneration in the Writing of Wole Soyinka written by Bello, Hakeem and published by Kraft Books. This book was released on 2015-03-18 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A concern for social regeneration stands as the factor that animates Soyinka's life-long involvement in social and political activism, leading to his incarceration for two years during the civil war, and his having to flee into exile during the period of Sani Abacha's dictatorship. Soyinka expresses this same concern for social regeneration in his writings, using different metaphors. The focus of this work lies in the exploration of the articulations of social regeneration in the works of Wole Soyinka. The first part focuses on the dramatic works, and the argument of the author is that the metaphor adopted by Africa's foremost playwright in articulating his vision of social regeneration is that of ritual. Attention shifts in part two to Soyinka's two novels; and here, Bello goes to the roots of Yoruba metaphysics to fetch a metaphor which describes a creature with contradictory personality; which at once is committed to the regeneration of the social order while at the same time retaining a vindictive, vengeful nature.
Download or read book Morality Violence and Ritual Circumcision written by Na'ama Carlin and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-11-30 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book uses the Jewish ritual of circumcision to consider how violent acts are embedded within entrenched moral discourses and offers a new perspective for thinking about violence. Intervening in contemporary debates on the Jewish ritual of circumcision, it departs from both the ordinary secular defences of circumcision for medical reasons, and the criticisms that consider it an unethical violation of bodies that cannot consent. An examination of the intersection of violence and morality, this book rejects the binary logic on which popular debates on circumcision hinge, arguing that in some instances violence can be a productive experience and can thus be considered beyond ‘good’ and ‘bad’. Engaging with the works of Jacques Derrida, the author puts forward a framework of violence of ontology, which is characterised as a violence that is related to existence, the violence of being, which resists definition through binary oppositions. In so doing, the author contends that circumcision is in fact a form of generative violence that is leveraged for cultural purposes and inherent in the making of bodies. As such, this volume offers a compelling framework that investigates the relationship between bodies, identities, ethics, and violence, and will therefore appeal to scholars of sociology, social theory, and religion with interests in the sociology of the body, ritual, and cultural studies.
Download or read book Ritual Violence in the Ancient Andes written by Haagen D. Klaus and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2016-07-26 with total page 487 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traditions of sacrifice exist in almost every human culture and often embody a society’s most meaningful religious and symbolic acts. Ritual violence was particularly varied and enduring in the prehistoric South American Andes, where human lives, animals, and material objects were sacrificed in secular rites or as offerings to the divine. Spectacular discoveries of sacrificial sites containing the victims of violent rituals have drawn ever-increasing attention to ritual sacrifice within Andean archaeology. Responding to this interest, this volume provides the first regional overview of ritual killing on the pre-Hispanic north coast of Peru, where distinct forms and diverse trajectories of ritual violence developed during the final 1,800 years of prehistory. Presenting original research that blends empirical approaches, iconographic interpretations, and contextual analyses, the contributors address four linked themes—the historical development and regional variation of north coast sacrifice from the early first millennium AD to the European conquest; a continuum of ritual violence that spans people, animals, and objects; the broader ritual world of sacrifice, including rites both before and after violent offering; and the use of diverse scientific tools, archaeological information, and theoretical interpretations to study sacrifice. This research proposes a wide range of new questions that will shape the research agenda in the coming decades, while fostering a nuanced, scientific, and humanized approach to the archaeology of ritual violence that is applicable to archaeological contexts around the world.
Download or read book Sanctioned Violence in Early China written by Mark Edward Lewis and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 1989-08-15 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides new insight into the creation of the Chinese empire by examining the changing forms of permitted violence—warfare, hunting, sacrifice, punishments, and vengeance. It analyzes the interlinked evolution of these violent practices to reveal changes in the nature of political authority, in the basic units of social organization, and in the fundamental commitments of the ruling elite. The work offers a new interpretation of the changes that underlay the transformation of the Chinese polity from a league of city states dominated by aristocratic lineages to a unified, territorial state controlled by a supreme autocrat and his agents. In addition, it shows how a new pattern of violence was rationalized and how the Chinese of the period incorporated their ideas about violence into the myths and proto-scientific theories that provided historical and natural prototypes for the imperial state.
Download or read book North American Indigenous Warfare and Ritual Violence written by Richard J. Chacon and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2007-09-15 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite evidence of warfare and violent conflict in pre-Columbian North America, scholars argue that the scale and scope of Native American violence is exagerated. They contend that scholarly misrepresentation has denigrated indigenous peoples when in fact they lived together in peace and harmony. In rebutting that contention, this groundbreaking book presents clear evidenceÑfrom multiple academic disciplinesÑthat indigenous populations engaged in warfare and ritual violence long before European contact. In ten well-documented and thoroughly researched chapters, fourteen leading scholars dispassionately describe sources and consequences of Amerindian warfare and violence, including ritual violence. Originally presented at an American Anthropological Association symposium, their findings construct a convincing case that bloodshed and killing have been woven into the fabric of indigenous life in North America for many centuries. The editors argue that a failure to acknowledge the roles of warfare and violence in the lives of indigenous North Americans is itself a vestige of colonial repressionÑdepriving native warriors of their history of armed resistance. These essays document specific acts of Native American violence across the North American continent. Including contributions from anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, and ethnographers, they argue not only that violence existed but also that it was an important and frequently celebrated component of Amerindian life. CONTENTS Acknowledgments Introduction Richard J. Chacon and RubŽn G. Mendoza 1.ÊÊTraditional Native Warfare in Western Alaska Ernest S. Burch Jr. 2.ÊÊBarbarism and Ardour of War from the Tenderest YearsÓ: Cree-Inuit Warfare in the Hudson Bay Region Charles A. Bishop and Victor P. Lytwyn 3.ÊÊAboriginal Warfare on the Northwest Coast: Did the Potlatch Replace Warfare? Joan A. Lovisek 4.ÊÊEthnohistoric Descriptions of Chumash Warfare John R. Johnson 5.ÊÊDocumenting Conflict in the Prehistoric Pueblo Southwest Polly Schaafsma 6.ÊÊCahokia and the Evidence for Late Pre-Columbian War in the North American Midcontinent Thomas E. Emerson 7.ÊÊIroquois-Huron Warfare Dean R. Snow 8.ÊÊDesecrating the Sacred Ancestor Temples: Chiefly Conflict and Violence in the American Southeast David H. Dye and Adam King 9.ÊÊWarfare, Population, and Food Production in Prehistoric Eastern North America George R. Milner 10.ÊÊThe Osteological Evidence for Indigenous Warfare in North America Patricia M. Lambert 11.ÊÊEthical Considerations and Conclusions Regarding Indigenous Warfare and Violence in North America Richard J. Chacon and RubŽn G. Mendoza References About the Contributors Index
