Anthropology of Ritual / Antropologie rituálu

Magisterské

/vyučováno v angličtině/

The course is concerned with ritual behaviour analysis. The ritual is considered to be a universal feature common to all humanity, and on the other hand, we will also study its diversity in various cultures and discourses. Within sociocultural anthropology, the ritual has been one of the key concepts. The aim is to synthetize, organise and improve the knowledge of students and to understand that the significance of a ritual is dependent on particular concept of human beings and their culture.
The aim of the class readings discussions is to make students familiar with how the meaning, content and functions of a ritual are understood in different perspectives. Especially, we aim to provide students with a broader range of anthropology texts. Plus, through the confrontation with their master’s degree project, we will focus on the improvement of texts understanding, interpretation and critical reading.

Main topics – outline:
1. links between what we ask and what we discover
2. particular approaches to ritual: various notions of a human being
3. ritual in the history of sociocultural anthropology
4. the complexity of symbols
5. diversity of ritual in space and time
6. the social drama and integration
7. ritual in the contemporary societies
8. links to the transcultural communication

BARTH, Fredrik. Cosmologies in the making: a generative approach to cultural variation in inner New Guinea. Cambridge, 1987.
BLOCH, Maurice. The disconnection between Power and Rank as a Process: An Outline of the Development of Kingdom in Central Madagascar, in Ritual, History and Power: Selected Papers in Anthropology, Oxford, 1989, p. 46-88.
DELANEY, Carol Lowery. VIPs: Very Important People, Places, and Performances, in Investigating culture: an experiential introduction to anthropology. Hoboken, 2017, p. 341–396.
DOUGLAS, Mary. Magic and Miracle, in Purity and danger: an analysis of concept of pollution and taboo. London, 2002, p. 72–90.
GEERTZ, Clifford. Religion as a Cultural System, in The Interpretation of Cultures. Selected Essays. New
York, 1973, p. 87–125.
GELL, Alfred. Closure and Multiplication: An Essay on Polynesian Cosmology and Ritual, in Cosmos and Society in Oceania. Oxford, 1995, p. 21–56.
RAPPAPORT, Roy A. Enactments of Meaning, in Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity. Cambridge 1999, p. 104–138.
SCHECHNER, Richard. Ritual and performance, in Companion encyclopedia of anthropology. London, 2002, p. 613–647.
TAMBIAH, Stanley Jeyaraja. Form and Meaning of Magical Acts, in Culture, Thought, and Social Action: An Anthropological Perspective. Cambridge, 1985 [1973], p. 60–86.
TURNER, Victor Witter. Liminality and Communitas, in The Ritual Process. Structure and Anti-structure. Chicago, 1969, p. 94-130.