Ritual, Performance and the Senses

ISBN-13: 9780857854735 / Angielski / Twarda / 2015 / 224 str.

Jon P. Mitchell; Michael Bull

Opis

Ritual has long been a central concept in anthropological theories of religious transmission. Ritual, Performance and the Senses offers a new understanding of how ritual enables religious representations - ideas, beliefs, values - to be shared among participants. Focusing on the body and the experiential nature of ritual, the book brings together insights from three distinct areas of study: cognitive/neuroanthropology, performance studies and the anthropology of the senses. Eight chapters by scholars from each of these sub-disciplines investigate different aspects of embodied religious practice, ranging from philosophical discussions of belief to explorations of the biological processes taking place in the brain itself. Case studies range from
miracles and visionary activity in Catholic Malta to meditative practices in theatrical performance and include three pilgrimage sites: the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the festival of Ramlila in Ramnagar, India and the mountain shrine of the Lord of the Shiny Snow in Andean Peru.Understanding ritual allows us to understand processes at the very centre of human social life and humanity itself, making this an invaluable text for students and scholars in anthropology, cognitive science, performance studies and religious studies.

Spis treści

Introduction Jon P. Mitchell and Michael Bull, University of Sussex, UK Ritual Action Shapes Our Brains: an Essay in Neuroanthropology Robert Turner, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany Place-making in the ‘Holy of Holies’: the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem Trevor Marchand, School of Oriental and African Studies, UK The Importance of Repetition: Ritual as Extension of Mind Greg Downey, Macquarie University, Australia Divine Intervention: Ontology, Cognition and Performance in Maltese Visionary Phenomena Jon P. Mitchell, University of Sussex, UK Making ‘Sense’ in Embodied/Enactive Modes of Actor Training and Performance Phillip Zarrilli, University of Exeter, UK Ramlila and Space Richard Schechner, Tisch School of the Arts, NYU, USA Exploring the Andean Sensory Model: Knowledge, Memory and the Experience of Pilgrimage Zoila Mendoza, University of California, Davis, USA Sensation and Transmission David Howes, Concordia University, Canada Afterword Sarah Pink, Loughborough University, UK Bibliography Index

O autorze

Michael Bull is Professor of Sound Studies at the University of Sussex, UK.Jon P. Mitchell is Reader in Social Anthropology at the University of Sussex, UK.