This reissue of "Affecting Performance" makes available a major work in performance studies, linguistic anthropology, ritual and symbolic studies, and African studies. A classic study widely used in the classroom, the book examines how ceremonial performance works and the contradictory dynamics of gender and ethnicity in Okiek initiation ceremonies in Kenya.

Combining discourse analysis, semiotics, history, political economy, symbolic interpretation, and gender studies, Corinne Kratz examines the power of ritual to produce social transformation and explores how children are made into...