Introduction to the Study of Ritual 

In this episode we introduce some of the key theorists and theories over the past century that have shaped our modern understanding of ritual and discuss the core questions, debates, issues and theories that have constituted the grand study of ritual.
We begin with an overview of different types of ritual, followed by a brief discussion on the early challenges the study of ritual faced, followed by a historical sketch of the leading theories of ritual, and conclude with some closing words about what we might learn from the study of ritual, what it might teach us about rituals, and what it and they might teach us about ourselves.
00:00 Xunzi’s three warnings
01:08 Intro: Religious Studies vs Religious Practice?
01:51 Table of Content
02:46 Acknowledgements
04:19 Pitch
04:58 What is Ritual? Etymology and Taxonomy
09:33 Early Scholarship
11:35 Intro: Theory of Ritual
12:54 Smith
14:36 Frazer
16:42 Durkheim
19:33 Douglas
21:16 Hubert & Mauss
22:50 Erikson
25:26 Eliade
27:13 Smith
29:10 van Gennep
32:33 Turner
35:18 Lévi-Strauss
37:40 Geertz
39:22 Leach
40:50 Practice & Performance
43:40 Grimes
44:44 Bell
47:52 Ritual?
49:15 Summary
50:33 Conclusion
References and Further Reading:
• Bell, “Ritual,” in The Wiley Blackwell Companion to the Study of Religion, Second Edition, 2021
• Bell, Catherine. 1992. Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Bell, Catherine. 1997. Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions. New York: Oxford University Press
• Douglas, Mary, Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology (New York: Random House, 1970)
• Douglas, Mary. 1966. Purity and Danger: London: Routledge and Kegan Paul
• Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, New York, The Free Press, 1995
• Eliade, Mircea, The Myth of the Eternal Return (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954
• Eliade, Mircea. 1963 [1958]. Patterns in Comparative Religion. New York: Meridian Books
• Eliade, Sacred and Profane, New York: Harvest Book, 1957
• Erikson, “Eight Ages of Man” in Childhood and Society, 2d rev. ed. (New York: Norton, 1963)
• Frazer, 1922 (1890). The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion.. London: Macmillan
• Geertz, The Interpretation of Culture, (New York: Basic Books, 1973)
• Grimes, Ronald L. 1995 [1982]. Beginnings in Ritual Studies. Columbia
• Grimes, Ronald L., Research in Ritual Studies [1982] (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1985)
• Hubert and Mauss, 1964 [1898]. Sacrifice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Hughes‐Freeland and Crain. 1998. Recasting Ritual: Performance, Media, Identity. London: Routledge.
• Humphrey, Caroline, and James Laidlaw. 1994. The Archetypal Actions of Ritual. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Ortner, Sherry B. 1978. Sherpas Through Their Rituals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Rappaport, 1999. Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Robertson Smith, William, Lectures on the Religion of the Semites: [1889] (New York: KTAV, 1969)
• Schechner and Appel, eds. 1989. By Means of Performance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Segal, Robert A., ed. 1998. The Myth and Ritual Theory. Oxford: Blackwell.
• Smith, Jonathan Z., Imagining Religion, (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1982)
• Smith, Jonathan Z., To Take Place, (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1987)
• Turner, Victor. 1969. The Ritual Process: Structure and Antistructure. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press
• Van Gennep, The Rites of Passage, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1961
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