Ritual from Five Angles

Abstract

Since its inception in 1987, The Journal of Ritual Studies, has published many seminal articles on the definition, recognition, and interpretation of ritual practices. The journal's approach has been interdisciplinary from the start, enriching the scope of contributions and broadening the base of conversations about theory. Its corpus of contributions can be a useful resource for teaching ritual, and this chapter demonstrates how this potential can be realized, using five articles from recent issues analyzed at a graduate or upper-level undergraduate level. The five articles chosen for this task all consider current themes in religious studies, ritual studies, and anthropological studies: the local and the global; ritual and invention; performance and performativity; embodiment and communication; and ritual and human consciousness. Show more