Ritual Textuality: Pattern and Motion in Performance (Oxford Ritual Studies) - Hardcover

Book 8 of 16: Oxford Ritual Studies

Tomlinson, Matt

 
9780199341139: Ritual Textuality: Pattern and Motion in Performance (Oxford Ritual Studies)
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0199341133 ISBN 13: 9780199341139
Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2014

Synopsis

A classic question in studies of ritual is how ritual performances achieve-or fail to achieve-their effects. In this pathbreaking book, Matt Tomlinson argues that participants condition their own expectations of ritual success by interactively creating distinct textual patterns of sequence, conjunction, contrast, and substitution. Drawing on long-term research in Fiji, Ritual Textuality presents in-depth studies of each of these patterns, taken from a wide range of settings: a fiery, soul-saving Pentecostal crusade; relaxed gatherings at which people drink the narcotic beverage kava; deathbeds at which missionaries eagerly await the signs of good Christians' "happy deaths"; and the monologic pronouncements of a military-led government determined to make the nation speak in a single voice. In each of these cases, Tomlinson also examines the broad ideologies of motion which frame participants' ritual actions, such as Pentecostals' beliefs that effective worship requires ecstatic movement like jumping, dancing, and clapping, and nineteenth-century missionaries' insistence that the journeys of the soul in the afterlife should follow a new path. By approaching ritual as an act of "entextualization"-in which the flow of discourse is turned into object-like texts-while analyzing the ways people expect words, things, and selves to move in performance, this book presents a new and compelling way to understand the efficacy of ritual action.

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About the Author

Matt Tomlinson has conducted anthropological research in Fiji since 1996, focusing on the intersections of culture, language, ritual, and politics. After receiving his Ph.D. in 2002, he taught at Bowdoin College, and then became a lecturer at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. He is currently an Australian Research Council Future Fellow in Anthropology at The Australian National University in Canberra.

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Publisher
Oxford University Press
Publication date
2014
Language
English
ISBN 10 
0199341133
ISBN 13 
9780199341139
Binding
Hardcover
Edition number
1
Number of pages
186

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9780199341146: Ritual Textuality: Pattern and Motion in Performance (Oxford Ritual Studies)

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  0199341141 ISBN 13:  9780199341146
Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2014
Softcover