Browse Hierarchy ANTH5003: Anthropology of Ritual

This module explores anthropological approaches to Ritual as a universal feature of human social behaviour. Within a comparative social and historical framework, the module will look at evidence for the origins of ritual, and a range of definitions of and theoretical approaches to ritual. Attention will be given to key anthropological concepts (e.g. rites of passage, liminality, anti-structure, communities). Ritual is often considered as exotic and as primarily related to religion. However, the anthropological approach requires that ritual be situated not only in religious but also in secular contexts, including for instance: politics and power relations, the construction of social identities and the reproduction and invention of 'tradition'.