Alongside description of a number of specific rites, this Very Short Introduction explores ritual from both theoretical and historical perspectives. Barry Stephenson focuses on the places where ritual touches everyday life: in politics and power; moments of transformation in the life cycle; as performance and embodiment. He also discusses the boundaries of ritual, and how and why certain behaviours have been studied as ritual while others have not.

• List of illustrations


• Introduction


• Chapter 1 Ritualization


• Chapter 2 Ritual and the Origins of Culture


• Chapter 3 Ritual and Society


• Chapter 4 Ritual and Transformation


• Chapter 5 Definitions, Types, Domains


• Chapter 6 Ritual as Performance


• Chapter 7 The Fortunes of Ritual


• References


• Further reading


• Index

Barry Stephenson is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Memorial University, St. John's, Newfoundland, and coeditor of the Oxford Ritual Studies Series. He is the author of Performing the Reformation: Public Ritual in the City of Luther and Veneration and Revolt: Hermann Hesse and Swabian Pietism.