Download or read book Ritual and the Moral Life written by David Solomon and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-03-26 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the twentieth century, in both China and the West, ritual became marginalized in the face of the growth of secularism and individualism. In China, Confucianism and its essentially ritualistic comportment to the world were vigorously suppressed during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) under Mao Zedong. But de-ritualization already took place as a result of the Chinese Revolution of 1911 under Sun Yat-Sen. In the West, while the process of de-ritualization has been generally more gradual, it has been nonetheless drastic. In contrast to this situation, this volume investigates the crucial role ritual plays in constituting the human understanding of their place in the cosmos, the purpose of their lives, and imbues human existence with a more complete sense of meaningfulness. This volume presents the work of philosophers from both China and the West as they reflect upon the constitutive role that ritual plays in human life. They reflect not only on ritual in general but also on specific Confucian and Christian appreciations of ritual. This provocative volume is a beacon of warning to Western philosophers, who think they have graduated from the trappings of ritual, and a beacon of hope for Eastern thinkers, who wish to avoid cultural fragmentation. The Editors, both Eastern and Western, have together created a seamless work that not only introduces ritual, but advances an argument for the contribution that ritual makes to cultural renewal. This volume is a work of philosophical thinking about ritual doing, but challenges those who think to realize that the salvation of philosophical thinking rests in the particularity and contingency of ritual doing. Let us hope this volume is widely read, for it points to that which might renew the West. - Jeffrey P. Bishop, Saint Louis University

Download or read book Ecology and the Sacred written by Roy A. Rappaport and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A meaningful homage to an extraordinary anthropologist

Download or read book Theorizing Rituals Volume 2 Annotated Bibliography of Ritual Theory 1966 2005 written by Jens Kreinath and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2007-09-30 with total page 593 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Volume two of Theorizing Rituals mainly consists of an annotated bibliography of more than 400 items covering those books, edited volumes and essays that are considered most relevant for the field of ritual theory. Instead of proposing yet another theory of ritual, the bibliography is a comprehensive monument documenting four decades of theorizing rituals.

Download or read book Contemporary Theories of Religion written by Michael Stausberg and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-06-19 with total page 543 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Interest in theories of religion has never been greater. Scholars debate single theoretical approaches in different scholarly journals, while the ‘new atheists’ such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett criticize the whole idea of religion. For everyone eager to understand the current state of the field, Contemporary Theories of Religion surveys the neglected landscape in its totality. Michael Stausberg brings together leading scholars of the field to review and discuss seventeen contemporary theories of religion. As well as scholars of religion, it features anthropologists, archaeologists, classicists, evolutionary biologists, philosophers and sociologists. Each chapter provides students with background information on the theoretician, a presentation of the theory’s basic principles, an analysis of basic assumptions, and a review of previous critiques. Concluding with a section entitled 'Back and Forth', Stausberg compares the different theories and points to further avenues of discussion for the future.

Download or read book Supernaturalism in Human Life written by Jacob Pandian and published by Vedams eBooks (P) Ltd. This book was released on 2002 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity written by Roy A. Rappaport and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1999-03-25 with total page 566 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Roy Rappaport argues that religion is central to the continuing evolution of life, although it has been been displaced from its original position of intellectual authority by the rise of modern science. His book, which could be construed as in some degree religious as well as about religion, insists that religion can and must be reconciled with science. Combining adaptive and cognitive approaches to the study of humankind, he mounts a comprehensive analysis of religion's evolutionary significance, seeing it as co-extensive with the invention of language and hence of culture as we know it. At the same time he assembles the fullest study yet of religion's main component, ritual, which constructs the conceptions which we take to be religious and has been central in the making of humanity's adaptation. The text amounts to a manual for effective ritual, illustrated by examples drawn from anthropology, history, philosophy, comparative religion, and elsewhere.

Download or read book Fundamentalism in the Modern World Vol 2 written by Ulrika Martensson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2011-06-30 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How does religious fundamentalism operate in modern global society? This two-volume series analyses the dynamics of fundamentalism and its relationship to the modern state, the public sphere and globalisation. This second volume explores the links between fundamentalism and communication: the rise of fundamentalism as a mass media phenomenon, fundamentalist communication in the public sphere, national cultural identities and the rise of a 'global society'. Expert scholars in the field address specific contemporary and past fundamentalist movements that have emerged from within mainstream Islam, Christianity, Baha'ism, Hinduism, Judaism and Buddhism. This is an important study of an increasingly significant and virulent aspect of modern society, and will be essential reading in the fields of Religion, Politics, Communications and Media Studies.

Download or read book Rethinking Modern Judaism written by Arnold M. Eisen and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Arnold Eisen here calls for a fundamental rethinking of the story of modern Judaism. More than simply a study of Jewish thought on customs and rituals, Rethinking Modern Judaism explores the central role that practice plays in Judaism's encounter with modernity. "Fascinating . . . an insightful entrance point to understanding the evolution of the theologies of America's largest Jewish denominations."—Tikkun "I know of no other treatment of these issues that matches Eisen's talents for synthesizing a wide variety of historical, philosophical, and social scientific sources, and bringing them to bear in a balanced and open-minded way on the delicate questions of why modern Jews relate as they do to the practices of Judaism."—Joseph Reimer, Boston Book Review "At once an incisive survey of modern Jewish thought and an inquiry into how Jews actually live their religious lives, Mr. Eisen's book is an invaluable addition to the study of American Judaism."—Elliott Abrams, Washington Times

Download or read book Ornament and Order written by Rafael Schacter and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-05-13 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the last forty years, graffiti and street-art have become a global phenomenon within the visual arts. Whilst they have increasingly been taken seriously by the art establishment (or perhaps the art market), their academic and popular examination still remains within old debates which argue over whether these acts are vandalism or art, and which examine the role of graffiti in gang culture and in terms of visual pollution. Based on an in-depth ethnographic study working with some of the world’s most influential Independent Public Artists, this book takes a completely new approach. Placing these illicit aesthetic practices within a broader historical, political, and aesthetic context, it argues that they are in fact both intrinsically ornamental (working within a classic architectonic framework), as well as innately ordered (within a highly ritualized, performative structure). Rather than disharmonic, destructive forms, rather than ones solely working within the dynamics of the market, these insurgent images are seen to reface rather than deface the city, operating within a modality of contemporary civic ritual. The book is divided into two main sections, Ornament and Order. Ornament focuses upon the physical artifacts themselves, the various meanings these public artists ascribe to their images as well as the tensions and communicative schemata emerging out of their material form. Using two very different understandings of political action, it places these illicit icons within the wider theoretical debate over the public sphere that they materially re-present. Order is focused more closely on the ephemeral trace of these spatial acts, the explicitly performative, practice-based elements of their aesthetic production. Exploring thematics such as carnival and play, risk and creativity, it tracks how the very residue of this cultural production structures and shapes the socio-ethico guidelines of these artists’ lifeworlds.

Download or read book Ancestral Power written by Lynne Hume and published by Melbourne University. This book was released on 2002 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploration of the concepts surrounding the Aboriginal Dreamtime - or The Dreaming - from a Western perspective. Examines a range of existing literature on Aboriginal cosmology and spiritual practices, as well as studies of Aboriginal art, anthropological and ethnomusicological data, and statements from a diverse geographical sphere of Aboriginal people. Includes notes, bibliography and index. Author is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Studies in Religion at the University of Queensland. She has previously written 'Witchcraft and Paganism in Australia'.

Download or read book The Philosopher s Index written by and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 568 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vols. for 1969- include a section of abstracts.

Download or read book Time Religion and History written by William Gallois and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-06-11 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is time? How does our sense of time lead us to approach the world? How did the peoples of the past view time? This book answers these questions through an investigation of the cultures of time in Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism and the Australian Dreamtime. It argues that our contemporary world is blind as to the significance and complexity of time, preferring to believe that time is ‘natural’ and unchanging. This is of critical importance to historians since the base matter of their study is time, yet there is almost no theoretical literature on time in history. This book offers the first detailed historiographical study of the centrality of time to human cultures. It sets out the complex ways in which ideas of time developed in the major world religions, and the manner in which such conceptions led people both to live in ways very different to our contemporary world and to make very different kinds of ‘histories’. It goes on to argue that modern scientific descriptions of time, such as Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, lie much closer to the complex understandings of time in religions such as Christianity than they do to our ‘common-sense’ notions of time which are centred on progress through a past, present and future.

Download or read book Gifts Favors and Banquets written by Mayfair Mei-Hui Yang and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2016-12-01 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An elaborate and pervasive set of practices, called guanxi, underlies everyday social relationships in contemporary China. Obtaining and changing job assignments, buying certain foods and consumer items, getting into good hospitals, buying train tickets, obtaining housing, even doing business—all such tasks call for the skillful and strategic giving of gifts and cultivating of obligation, indebtedness, and reciprocity. Mayfair Mei-hui Yang's close scrutiny of this phenomenon serves as a window to view facets of a much broader and more complex cultural, historical, and political formation. Using rich and varied ethnographic examples of guanxi stemming from her fieldwork in China in the 1980s and 1990s, the author shows how this "gift economy" operates in the larger context of the socialist state redistributive economy.

Download or read book Ritual and the Idea of Europe in Interwar Writing written by Patrick R. Query and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-08 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While most critical studies of interwar literary politics have focused on nationalism, Patrick Query makes a case that the idea of Europe intervenes in instances when the individual and the nation negotiate identity. He examines the ways interwar writers use three European ritual forms-verse drama, bullfighting, and Roman Catholic rite-to articulate ideas of European cultural identity. Within the growing discourse of globalization, Query argues, Europe presents a special, though often overlooked, case because it adds a mediating term between local and global. His book is divided into three sections: the first treats the verse dramas of T.S. Eliot, W.B. Yeats, and W.H. Auden; the second discusses the uses of the Spanish bullfight in works by D.H. Lawrence, Stephen Spender, Jack Lindsay, George Barker, Cecil Day Lewis, and others; and the third explores the cross-cultural impact of Catholic ritual in Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, and David Jones. While all three ritual forms were frequently associated with the most conservative tendencies of the age, Query shows that each had a remarkable political flexibility in the hands of interwar writers concerned with the idea of Europe.

Download or read book Architecture Time and Eternity written by Adrian Snodgrass and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a study of the stellar and temporal symbolism of traditional buildings.It is a comprehensive work that spans from the generalities of ymbolism of time in general,to the temporal symbolism in Indian,Greek,Roman,Near Eastern,Christian,Chinese,Islamic,North American Indian,African,South American Indian,and Mesoamerican architectures.--Google Books.

Download or read book Rituals of the Past written by Silvana Rosenfeld and published by University Press of Colorado. This book was released on 2017-04-01 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rituals of the Past explores the various approaches archaeologists use to identify ritual in the material record and discusses the influence ritual had on the formation, reproduction, and transformation of community life in past Andean societies. A diverse group of established and rising scholars from across the globe investigates how ritual influenced, permeated, and altered political authority, economic production, shamanic practice, landscape cognition, and religion in the Andes over a period of three thousand years. Contributors deal with theoretical and methodological concerns including non-human and human agency; the development and maintenance of political and religious authority, ideology, cosmologies, and social memory; and relationships with ritual action. The authors use a diverse array of archaeological, ethnographic, and linguistic data and historical documents to demonstrate the role ritual played in prehispanic, colonial, and post-colonial Andean societies throughout the regions of Peru, Chile, Bolivia, and Argentina. By providing a diachronic and widely regional perspective, Rituals of the Past shows how ritual is vital to understanding many aspects of the formation, reproduction, and change of past lifeways in Andean societies. Contributors: Sarah Abraham, Carlos Angiorama, Florencia Avila, Camila Capriata Estrada, David Chicoine, Daniel Contreras, Matthew Edwards, Francesca Fernandini, Matthew Helmer, Hugo Ikehara, Enrique Lopez-Hurtado, Jerry Moore, Axel Nielsen, Yoshio Onuki, John Rick, Mario Ruales, Koichiro Shibata, Hendrik Van Gijseghem, Rafael Vega-Centeno, Verity Whalen

Download or read book The Construction of Value in the Ancient World written by John K. Papadopoulos and published by Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press. This book was released on 2012-12-31 with total page 666 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recipient of the Jo Anne Stolaroff Cotsen Prize Scholars from Aristotle to Marx and beyond have been fascinated by the question of what constitutes value. The Construction of Value in the Ancient World makes a significant contribution to this ongoing inquiry, bringing together in one comprehensive volume the perspectives of leading anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, linguists, philologists, and sociologists on how value was created, defined, and expressed in a number of ancient societies around the world. Based on the basic premise that value is a social construct defined by the cultural context in which it is situated, the volume explores four overarching but closely interrelated themes: place value, body value, object value, and number value. The questions raised and addressed are of central importance to archaeologists studying ancient civilizations: How can we understand the value that might have been accorded to materials, objects, people, places, and patterns of action by those who produced or used the things that compose the human material record? Taken as a whole, the contributions to this volume demonstrate how the concept of value lies at the intersection of individual and collective tastes, desires, sentiments, and attitudes that inform the ways people select, or give priority to, one thing over another.