Theorizing Rituals ─ Classical Topics, Theoretical Approaches, Analytical Concepts

Feeling that theory has been neglected within the field of ritual studies, Kreinath (sociocultural anthropology, Wichita State U., US), Snoek (sciences of religion, U. of Heidelberg, Germany), and Stausberg (history of religions, U. of Bergen, Norway) present an anthology of 35 thematic chapters that survey both theories and approaches to theorizing in the field of ritual studies. After addressing methodological and metatheoretical issues, papers examine such classical topics myth and ritual, ritual and psyche, and ritual and meaning; theoretical approaches to action, aesthetics, cognition, communication, ethnology, gender, performance, praxis, relationality, and semiotics; and the paradigmatic concepts of agency, complexity, deference, dynamics, efficacy, embodiment, emotion, framing, language, media, participation, reflexivity, rhetorics, transmission, and virtuality. Annotation c2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Jens Kreinath (Dr. phil.) is affiliated to the Institute for Religious Studies at the University of Heidelberg and currently Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Wichita State University (U.S.A.). He is co-editor of The Dynamics of Changing Rituals (2004) and his publications include Semiose des Rituals (2006). His research interests focus upon theoretical and methodological issues in the anthropological study of religions. He is planning a publication on Ritual and Reflection: Tropes in Transformation and Transgression.Jan Snoek studied in Leiden (The Netherlands). In 1996 he held the Theodore Verhaegen Chair (Freemasonry) of the Free University of Brussels (ULB). Currently he teaches Sciences of Religions at the University of Heidelberg (Germany). He published widely about the development of masonic rituals. The edited volume Women's Agency and Rituals in Mixed and Female Masonic Orders (with Alexandra Heidle) will appear with Brill this year. In preparation is a monograph Transferring Masonic Rituals from Male to Mixed and Female Orders.Michael Stausberg (Dr. phil.) is professor of the History of Religions at the University of Bergen (Norway). His publications include Die Religion Zarathushtras (3 vols. 2002-2004). He is the editor of Zoroastrian Rituals in Context (2004). Apart from a study of the contemporary Zoroastrian priesthood in India and essays on a variety of topics (from the history of the study of religion to modern tourism), Stausberg is currently preparing a work on the terminology used in the study of religion (working title: The Vocabulary of Religious Studies).