Ritual: Key Concepts in Religion

Pamela J. Stewart is Senior Research Associate and Co-Director of the Cromie Burn Research Unit, in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh, USA, and Co-Editor of the Journal of Ritual Studies and the Ritual Studies Book Series. Andrew Strathern is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh, USA, and Co-Editor of the Journal of Ritual Studies and the Ritual Studies Book Series.

Stewart and Strathern critically evaluate classical and newer thinking in ritual studies, from that of Tylor, Frazer, Harrison, and Radcliffe Brown, to that of Turner, Bourdieu, Bell, Rappaport, Whitehouse, and Laidlaw. In addition, they thoughtfully critique persistent themes, such as sacrifice, secrecy, habitus, cognition, embodiment, performance, and framing. Insight based on fieldwork, including the authors' own, is proffered throughout. Overall, the elucidation is sharp and well-supported. Ritual: Key Concepts in Religion is a tremendous asset for the scholars and advanced students. -- Margo Kitts, author of 'Sanctified Violence in Homeric Society' Ritual: Key Concepts in Religion provides an important, powerful and provocative advance in the study of ritual. Braiding together reflection on rituals in many places with cutting edge analysis, the authors demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of existing concepts. They make possible a greatly enriched performance of theorizing ritual. -- Graham Harvey, The Open University, UK

• 1. Introduction: Problems of Definition 2. Early Grand Theorists3. The Fieldwork Revolution: Malinowski, Racliffe-Brown and Functionalism 4. Structure and Process: Victor Turner 5. Ancestor Worship: Meyer Fortes and Psychological Interpretations6. Sacrifice7. Contemporary Processual and Post-Processual Approaches: Questions of Meanings and Exegesis 8. Performance and Perfomativity9. New Cognitive Approaches: Old Wine in New Bottles?10. Conclusions: Back to Framing and ValuesBibliographyIndex