Overview
Provides synoptic and cutting-edge analyses of a broad range of topics and theories in Ritual Studies, taking account of the many disciplines that the field encompasses
Features a global ethnographic reach, using a broad array of international case studies to inform theory-based chapters
Engages with and respects the multi-disciplinary approach characteristic of Ritual Studies
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Table of contents (19 chapters)
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Front Matter
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New Perspectives, Established Themes
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Front Matter
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Comparative Studies
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Front Matter
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Keywords
About this book
Ritual Studies have achieved prominence since the 1980s, when interest in ritual as an object of inquiry was established, bridging over a number of humanities and social science disciplines. Both connected with religious studies and independent of it; overlapping with social and cultural anthropology, but also with history; related to science and health practices and ranging across the life course to education, Ritual Studies has come to encompass studies of change and dynamism in social life. Rituals are determinate in form, but not static. They enunciate distinctive social values within specific contexts that frame them; and they relate to the wider concerns and issues of their practitioners.
Due to this broad and wide-ranging scope, it is often difficult to find a single resource on Ritual Studies, and even more so to find one which moves beyond the beginnings of anthropological theorizing to grapple with the present-day contexts of ritual. Bringing together recent ethnographies of ritual practice and ritualization from across the globe, this Handbook provides case study of ritual in the light of Emotion and Cognition, Identity, Religious Power, Performance and Literature, Ecology and Ecological Disaster, Media, and other topics. While each chapter provides a deep ethnography of a specific society, ritual, or ritualized practice, each also engages with current theoretical and substantive approaches to the relevant topic.
The scholars collected here provide original synoptic and indicative pieces as guideposts and pathways through the complex, varied and cross-disciplinary, and vast landscape of scholarship that constitutes Ritual Studies today and points to developments in the future.
Editors and Affiliations
About the editors
Pamela J. Stewart is Senior Research Associate in Anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh, USA.
Andrew J. Strathern is Andrew Mellon Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh, USA.
Stewart and Strathern have a long history of joint publications and research, with nearly fifty book publications and over two hundred co-authored articles. They are the long-standing co-editors of the Journal of Ritual Studies, and co-editors of the book series Ritual Studies and the volume Ritual: Key Concepts in Religion (2014).
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: The Palgrave Handbook of Anthropological Ritual Studies
Editors: Pamela J. Stewart, Andrew J. Strathern
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76825-6
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-76824-9Published: 25 August 2021
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-76827-0Published: 26 August 2022
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-76825-6Published: 24 August 2021
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XIII, 395
Number of Illustrations: 2 b/w illustrations, 10 illustrations in colour
Topics: Social Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, Ethnography, Comparative Religion