Victor Turner and Contemporary Cultural Performance

Graham St John is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Dept of Social Sciences, University of Fribourg, Switzerland, and an Adjunct Research Fellow in the Griffith Centre for Cultural Research, Griffith University, Australia. He is Executive Editor of Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture and is author of Weekend Societies: Electronic Dance Music Festivals and Event-Cultures (Bloomsbury 2017), Mystery School in Hyperspace: A Cultural History of DMT (North Atlantic Books, 2015), Global Tribe: Technology, Spirituality and Psytrance (Equinox, 2012) and Technomad: Global Raving Countercultures (Equinox, 2009).

“This collection of writings dedicated to the Turners may sometimes contest the validity and morality of 'feelings and desires', but St John gives these elusive possibilities an enduring stage for becoming. Could the volume be conceived as an academic fissure inciting change?”  ·  Australasian Drama Studies“An impressive selection of analyses conducted through diverse disciplinary lenses (including media and communication, sociology, religion, and anthropology) explicates the need for a revival of Turner's multifaceted theory.”  ·  The Canadian Review of Sociology“This volume is a wonderful exercise in rethinking Turner through the lens of our increasingly digitalized and mediatized world. . . . The introduction by St John alone is worth the price of the book. Dense with the jargon of scholarship, freshly minted phrases, theoretical labels, and esoteric framings, as it need be to describe the work of Turner, who made a prodigious impact across a spectrum of disciplines."  ·  JRAI

• Victor Turner and Contemporary Cultural Performance: An IntroductionGraham St JohnPART I: PERFORMING CULTURE: RITUAL, DRAMA AND MEDIAChapter 1. Toward a Unified Theory of Cultural Performance: A "Reconstructive Introduction" to Victor TurnerJ. Lowell LewisChapter 2. The Ritualization of Performance (Studies)Ian MaxwellChapter 3. Performing "Sorry Business": Reconciliation and Redressive ActionMichael Cohen, Paul Dwyer and Laura GintersChapter 4. Liminality in Media Studies: From Everyday Life to Media EventsMihai ComanChapter 5. Social Drama in a Mediatized World: The Racist Murder of Stephen LawrenceSimon CottlePART II POPULAR CULTURE AND RITES OF PASSAGEChapter 6. Modern Sports: Liminal Ritual or Liminoid Leisure?Sharon RoweChapter 7. Trance Tribes and Dance Vibes: Victor Turner and Electronic Dance Music CultureGraham St JohnChapter 8. Backpacking as a Contemporary Rite of Passage: Victor Turner and Youth Travel PracticesAmie MatthewsChapter 9. Walking to Hill End with Victor Turner: A Theatre-Making Immersion EventGerard BolandPART III: CONTEMPORARY PILGRIMAGE AND COMMUNITASChapter 10. Of Ordeals and Operas: Reflexive Ritualizing at the Burning Man FestivalLee GilmoreChapter 11. "Shopping For A Self": Pilgrimage, Identity-Formation and Retail TherapyJustine Digance and Carole CusackChapter 12. Turner Meets Gandhi: Pilgrimage, Ritual and the Diffusion of Non-Violent Direct ActionSean ScalmerChapter 13. Dramas, Fields, and ‘Appropriate Education’: The Ritual Process, Contestation, and Communitas for Parents of Special-Needs ChildrenMargi NowakPART IV: EDITH TURNER Chapter 14. An Interview with Edith TurnerMatthew EngelkeChapter 15. Woman/women in "the Discourse of Man": Edie Turner and Victor Turner’s Language of the FeminineBarbara BabcockChapter 16. Faith and (Social) Science: Contrasting Victor and Edith Turner’s Analysis of Spiritual RealitiesDouglas EzzyChapter 17. Challenging the Boundaries of Experience, Performance, and Consciousness: Edith Turner’s Contributions to the Turnerian ProjectJill DubischNotes on ContributorsBibliographyIndex