Download or read book Reading Writing and Ritualizing written by Ronald L. Grimes and published by Washington, D.C. : Pastoral Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of studies on ritual and ritualizing leads the reader through religious

Download or read book Homo Ritualis written by Axel Michaels and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are the richness and diversity of rituals and celebrations in South Asia unique? Can we speak of a homo ritualis when it comes to India or Hinduism? Are Indians or Hindus more involved in rituals than other people? If so, what makes them special? Homo Ritualis is the first book to present a Hindu theory of rituals. Based on extensive textual studies and field-work in Nepal and India, Axel Michaels argues that ritual is a distinctive way of acting, which, as in the theater, can be distinguished from other forms of action. The book analyzes ritual in these cultural-specific and religious contexts, taking into account how indigenous terms and theories affect and contribute to current ritual theory. It describes and investigates various forms of Hindu rituals and festivals, such as life-cycle rituals, the Vedic sacrifice, vows processions, and the worship of deities (puja). It also examines conceptual components of (Hindu) rituals such as framing, formality, modality, and theories of meaning.

Download or read book Rational Ritual written by Michael Suk-Young Chwe and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-04-28 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Why do beer commercials dominate Super Bowl advertising? How do political ceremonies establish authority? Why were circular forms favored for public festivals during the French Revolution? This book answers these questions using a single concept: common knowledge. Game theory shows that in order to coordinate its actions, a group of people must form "common knowledge." Each person wants to participate only if others also participate. Members must have knowledge of each other, knowledge of that knowledge, and so on. Michael Chwe applies this insight, with striking erudition, to analyze a range of rituals across history and cultures. He shows that public ceremonies are powerful not simply because they transmit meaning from a central source to each audience member but because they let audience members know what other members know. In a new afterword, Chwe delves into new applications of common knowledge, both in the real world and in experiments, and considers how generating common knowledge has become easier in the digital age." -- From the jacket.

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 The Craft of Ritual Studies written by Ronald L. Grimes and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Readership: Students and scholars of ritual studies, religious studies, anthropology

Download or read book Ritualized Writing written by Bryan D. Lowe and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2017-03-31 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ritualized Writing takes readers into the fascinating world of Japanese Buddhist manuscript cultures. Using archival sources that have received scant attention in English, primarily documents from an eighth-century Japanese scriptorium and colophons from sutra manuscripts, Bryan D. Lowe uncovers the ways in which the transcription of Buddhist scripture was a highly ritualized endeavor. He takes a ground-level approach by emphasizing the activities and beliefs of a wide range of individuals, including scribes, provincial patrons, and royals, to reassess the meaning of scripture and reevaluate scholarly narratives of Japanese Buddhist history. Copying scripture is a central Buddhist practice and one that thrived in East Asia. Despite this, there are no other books dedicated to the topic. This work demonstrates that patrons and scribes treated sutras differently from other modes of writing. Scribes purified their bodies prior to transcription. Patrons held dedicatory ceremonies on days of abstinence, when prayers were pronounced and sutras were recited. Transcribing sutras helped scribes and patrons alike realize this- and other-worldly ambitions and cultivate themselves in accord with Buddhist norms. Sutra copying thus functioned as a form of ritualized writing, a strategic practice that set apart scripture as uniquely efficacious and venerable. Lowe employs this notion of ritualized writing to challenge historical narratives about ancient Japan (late seventh through early ninth centuries), a period when sutra copying flourished. He contends that Buddhist practice fulfilled a variety of social, political, and spiritual roles beyond ideological justification. Moreover, he demonstrates the inadequacy of state-folk dichotomies for understanding the social groups, institutions, and individual beliefs and practices of ancient Japanese Buddhism, highlighting instead common organizations across social class and using models that reveal shared concerns among believers from diverse social backgrounds. Ritualized Writing makes broader contributions to the study of ritual and scripture by introducing the notion of scriptural cultures, an analytic tool that denotes a series of dynamic relationships and practices involving texts that have been strategically set apart or ritualized. Scripture, Lowe concludes, is at once a category created by humans and a body of texts that transforms individuals and social organizations who come into contact with it.

Download or read book Ritual Words and Narrative Worlds in the Book of Leviticus written by Bryan D. Bibb and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2009-06-01 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that literary features and ritual dynamics within the book of Leviticus enlighten each other. The first two chapters establish that one may read Leviticus as a coherent literary work and define the genre of Leviticus as "narrativized ritual," a complex blending of descriptive narrative and prescriptive ritual. In conversation with Catherine Bell, they present several aspects of the text that are ritualized and show how this ritualization implies a negotiation of power relations among participants. The third and fourth chapters examine the first half of Leviticus, both the legal sections in Lev. 1-7 and 11-15 and the narratives in Lev. 8-10 and 16. These sections alternate between establishing the ritual system and exposing gaps and ambiguities in that system.Chapter 5 turns to the second half of Leviticus, traditionally called the Holiness Code. The ritual language found in this section is less formal and precise, mirroring the way in which the concept of holiness is expanded and extended to the whole people. As this material concludes the book, it relativizes and democratizes the strict ritual system contained in the first half.

Download or read book Ritual Theory Ritual Practice written by Catherine Bell and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1992-01-30 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ritual 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.

Download or read book Eucharist and Globalization written by Claudio Carvalhaes and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2013-10-30 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The ritual of eating and drinking together is one of the most important Christian events. Often called Eucharist, Lord's Supper, or Communion, this sacrament is about the presence of Christ transforming not only those who participate in it but also the world. In this book, the author engages this Christian liturgical act with movements of people around our globalized world and checks the sacramental borders of hospitality. The author calls our attention to the sacramental practices of Reformed churches and, from this liturgical practice, challenges Christian churches to expand the borders of hospitality. Engaging several critical lenses around the notion of the sacrament--namely, Greco-Roman meals, Calvin's theology, and feminist and Latin American theologies--the author challenges theological and liturgical understandings of the Eucharist. He fosters an interreligious dialogue around the table and ends up using ritual theory to expand the circles of traditions, vocabularies, and practices around the sacrament. Proposing a borderless border eucharistic hospitality, the author encourages readers to ask who and where we are when we get together to eat and drink, and how this liturgical act around Jesus' table/meal can transform the lives of the poor, our communities, societies, and the world."

Download or read book Negotiating Rites written by Ute Husken and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ritual has been long viewed as an undisputed and indisputable part of (especially religious) tradition, performed over and over in the same ways: stable in form, meaningless, preconcieved, and with the aim of creating harmony and enabling a tradition's survival. The authors represented in this collection argue, however, that this view can be seriously challenged and that ritual's embeddedness in negotiation processes is one of its central features.

Download or read book The Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy written by Peter C. Phan and published by Liturgical Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2006 Catholic Press Association Award Winner After suffering an eclipse during the post-Vatican II liturgical reform, popular piety has regained its vital role in the spiritual life of Catholics. In response to its re-emergence, the Congregation for divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments issued the Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy on December 17, 2001. The Directory was written for bishops and their collaborators as a pastoral guide addressing the relationship between liturgy and popular piety. Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy: Principles and Guidelines, A Commentary by Peter C. Phan provides a chapter-by-chapter commentary on the Directory, summarizing its contents, highlighting its strengths and weaknesses, and offering suggestions on how devotional practices can be implemented in the United States. For liturgists, religious educators and students, pastoral leaders, and other interested Christians, this volume is helpful toward promoting a vigorous and authentic devotional life in the community, while respecting the preeminence of liturgical worship. The Commentary begins with a preface by Peter C. Phan and an introduction by James Empereur, entitled Popular Piety and the Liturgy: Principles and Guidelines." Chapters in Part One: Emerging Trends: History, Magisterium, Theology are *Liturgy and Popular Piety in a Historical Perspective, - by Mark R. Francis; *Liturgy and Popular Piety in the Church's Magisterium, - by Peter Fink; and *Theological Principles for an Evaluation and Renewal of Popular Piety, - by Nathan Mitchell. Chapters in Part Two: Guidelines for the Harmonization of Popular Piety with the Liturgy are *The Liturgical Year and Popular Piety, - by Keith F. Pecklers; *Veneration of the Holy Mother of God, - by Joyce Ann Zimmerman; *Veneration of the Saints and Beati, - by Rail Gomez; *Suffrage for the Dead, - by Peter C. Phan; *Shrines and Pilgrimages, - by Ana Maria Pineda. Concludes with a bibliography that presents the most significant recent writings on popular piety and liturgy, by Robert Brancatelli. Peter C. Phan, PhD, is the Ignacio Ellacuria Professor of Catholic Social Thought at Georgetown University. "

Download or read book Art Ritual and Trance Inquiry written by Barbara A. Bickel and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-11-02 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides insights into the practice of trance-based inquiry through arts-based research, serving as a beacon to guide the way to thresholds of ancient, yet novel, transmissions. Embedded in lived experience and theory, this book introduces the reader to the liminal space of place and trance-based inquiry processes entwined with creative artworkings. The interweaving of art, ritual, and trance-based inquiry opens sacred spaces for learning and unlearning that bring spirit into form. Each chapter presents examples from women artists and culminates with experiential practices drawn from the author’s decades of creative peregrinations to assist artists, teachers, and researchers in transmitting a conscious way of practicing and creating with trance.

Download or read book Theology and Literature Rethinking Reader Responsibility written by G. Ortiz and published by Springer. This book was released on 2006-05-12 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By examining theological and literary narratives through an engagement with well-known theorists of reading and religion, this collection of essays, international in perspective, brings together varied, refreshing and provocative responses to well-established literary and critical theories.

Download or read book Architecture of the Sacred written by Bonna D. Wescoat and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-02-27 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates the role of architecture in the construction of sacred experience in ancient Greek, Roman, Jewish, Christian and Byzantine cultures.

Download or read book Christian Ritualizing and the Baptismal Process written by Susan Marie Smith and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2011-11-15 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most people, even non-Christians, know that Christians gather for worship once a week, and that they are right there to support each other when there is a baptism or a wedding or a funeral. But what about other poignant, vulnerable, or life-changing times? How does the church help people handle changes that in the past, in Christendom, were considered "secular"? Does the church have a role at retirement when one's ministry changes, or when a family's children leave home and familiar patterns seem to grind to a halt? Is there any rite possible for someone who is called to Christian ministry but not to ordination? Or to someone whose vows are broken in divorce? Christian Ritualizing and the Baptismal Process asserts that baptism marks the beginning of a process of participation in Christ's ministry, so that no part of life can finally be considered secular. Susan Marie Smith shows how every passage, healing, and ministry vocation is "holy," and she lays the groundwork needed for every church to create the rituals necessary to lament and celebrate the endings and beginnings that happen in every Christian life.

Download or read book Liberating Rites written by Tom F. Driver and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-03-13 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book shows how necessary ritual is to human freedom and to social processes of liberation. It aims to reflect upon the deep human longing for ritual and to interpret it in the light of our physical, social, political, sexual, moral, aesthetic, and religious existence. .

Download or read book Religious Identity and the Invention of Tradition written by A.W.J. Houtepen and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-11-15 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: STAR - Studies in Theology and Religion, 3 This book contains the contributions to the first international conference organised by the Netherlands School for Advanced Studies in Theology and Religion (NOSTER), held in the Netherlands in January 1999. The conference theme was inspired by Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger’s influentual volume, The Invention of Tradition. Their work provided a starting point for discussing formations and changes of religious traditions on the one hand, and the interaction of religious identities and the transformation of traditions on the other. After an introductory section discussing Hobsbawm’s definitions and his theoretical framework, and offering several critical applications of his framework to Christian traditions, the main part of this volume consists of three thematic sections: the theme of the Exodus, the earliest traditions about the Lord’s supper, and the modern “myth of Fundamentalism”. This volume will be of interest to all those engaged in the study of religious traditions and identities, and the way in which these interact. From the Contents The Invention of Religious Traditions Counterfactuals and the Invention of Religious Traditions - Marcel Sarot The Creation of Tradition: Rereading and Reading beyond Hobsbawm - Paul Post Early Christianity between Divine Promise and Earthly Politics - Willemien Otten Challenging the Tradition of the Bodiless God: A Way to Inclusive Monotheism? - Kune E. Biezeveld Invention of Tradition? Trinity as Test - Herwi Rikhof Inventing and Re-inventing the Exodus The Exodus as Charter Myth - Karel van der Toorn Exodus: Liberation History against Charter Myth - Rainer Albertz The Development of the Exodus Tradition - John Collins History-oriented Foundation Myths in Israel and its Environment - Hans-Peter Müller The Exodus Motif in the Theologies of Liberation: Changes of Perspective - Georges De Schrijver Exodus in the African-American Experience - Theo Witvliet The Invention of the Eucharist and its Aftermath The Early History of the Lord’s Supper - Henk Jan de Jonge The Early History of the Lord’s Supper: Response to Henk Jan de Jonge - Dietrich-Alex Koch The Lord’s Supper and the Holy Communion in the Middle Ages: Sources, Significance, Remains and Confusion - Charles Caspers Meal and Sacrament: How Do We Encounter the Lord at the Table - Gerrit Immink Religious Fundamentalism: Facts and Fiction The Borderline between Muslim Fundamentalism and Muslim Modernism: An Indonesian Example - Herman Beck The Roaring Lion Strikes Again: Modernity vs. Dutch Orthodox Protestantism - Hijme Stoffels Fundamentalism: The Possibilities and Limitations of a Social-Psychological Approach - Jacques Janssen, Jan van der Lans and Mark Dechesne