From handshakes and toasts to chant and genuflection, ritual pervades our social interactions and religious practices. Still, few of us could identify all of our daily and festal ritual behaviors, much less explain them to an outsider. Similarly, because of the variety of activities that qualify as ritual and their many contradictory yet, in many ways, equally legitimate interpretations, ritual seems to elude any systematic historical and comparative scrutiny. In this book, Catherine Bell offers a practical introduction to ritual practice and its study; she surveys the most influential theories of religion and ritual, the major categories of ritual activity, and the key debates that have shaped our understanding of ritualism. Bell refuses to nail down ritual with any one definition or understanding. Instead, her purpose is to reveal how definitions emerge and evolve and to help us become more familiar with the interplay of tradition, exigency, and self- expression that goes into constructing this complex social medium.

Former Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies, Santa Clara University

Part 1 Theories: The History of Interpretation
1 Myth or Ritual: Questions of Origin and Essence
Early Theories and Theorists
They Myth and Ritual Schools
The Phenomenology of Religions
Psychoanalytic Approatches to Ritual
Profile: Interpreting the Akitu Festival
Conclusion
2 Ritual and Society: Questions of Social Funciton and Structure
Early Theories of Social Solidarity
Functionalism
Neofunctional Systems Analyses
Structuralism
Magic, Religion, and Science
Profile: Interpreting the Mukanda Initiation
Conclusion
3 Ritual Symbols, Syntax, and Praxis: Questions of Cultural Meaning and Interpretation
Symbolic Systems and Symbolic Action
Linguistics
Performance
Practice
Profile: Interpreting British and Swazi Enthronement Rites
Conclusion
Part II Rites: The Spectrum of Ritual Activities
4 Basic Genres of Ritual Action
Rites of Passage
Calendrical Rites
Rites of Affliction
Feasting, Fasting, and Festivals
Political Rites
Conclusion
Part III Contexts: The Fabric of Ritual Life
6 Ritual Density
Systems
Typologies
Orthopraxy and Orthodoxy
Traditional and Secular
Oral and Literate
Church, Sect, and Cult
Conclusion
7 Ritual Change
Tradition and Transformation
Ritual Invention
Media and Message
Conclusion
8 Ritual Reification
Repudiating, Returning, Romancing
The Emergence of "Ritual"
Conclusion