From the category archives:

Ritual elements or processes

Ritualization with and by Animals

10 March 2010
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Ritual Irony?

12 January 2010

In these two videos Kate MacGarry has followed Marcus Coates as he “shamanically” embodies animals and performs bird calls. Is he serious? Ironic? Merely playing? Both? Is this bad ritual? Bad theater? Good ritual? Good theatre? Installation art? And, aside from the genre question, do such events really matter to anyone other than the artists/shaman? [...]

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Rehearsal for the Raising of the Cross

19 April 2009

The webmasters have invited the artist and several others to discuss these images. What is, or might be, their relevance to ritual or its study? Would they enhance a ritual? Detract from it? Would it depend on what kind of ritual? Are the images ”artistic” or ”liturgical?” What’s the difference, if any? How might, or ought, a student of [...]

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Ritual Images

20 March 2009

The images in texts and textbooks devoted to ritual are often of poor quality and limited due to cost. Since much ritual is highly visual, it makes sense that students of ritual tend to photographing rites. Photographing ritual opens up methodological and theoretical questions, but also technical and aesthetic ones. We offer here two different examples of [...]

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