Ritual: A Very Short Introduction

Very Short Introductions #421

by Barry Stephenson

Ritual is part of what it means to be human. Like sports, music, and drama, ritual defines and enriches culture, putting those who practice it in touch with sources of value and meaning larger than themselves. Ritual is unavoidable, yet it holds a place in modern life that is decidedly ambiguous. What is ritual? What does it do? Is it useful? What are the various kinds of ritual? Is ritual tradition bound and conservative or innovative and transformational?

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 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 behaviors have been studied as ritual while others have not.

Stephenson shows how ritual is an important vehicle for group and identity formation; how it generates and transmits beliefs and values; how it can be used to exploit and oppress; and how it has served as a touchstone for thinking about cultural origins and historical change. Encompassing the breadth and depth of modern ritual studies, Barry Stephenson's Very Short Introduction also develops a narrative of ritual's place in social and cultural life.

ABOUT THE The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Genres: Nonfiction, Religion, Anthropology, Spirituality, Sociology, Philosophy, Science

144 pages, Paperback

First published November 25, 2014

About the author

Barry Stephenson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada.

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 2 out of 5]

Goodreads has its own rituals – perhaps my favourite is when the management team makes any change whatsoever they will be met with howls of foam-flecked rage and predictions of an imminent apocalypse, and someone with the name Suzie Fluffylittlerabbits will change her name to Suzie*the new font makes me vomit twice daily you bastards*.

For a sensible review of this tedious little book (so much tiresomeness packed into so few pages) see this one from Jonathan Cook

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Jonathan Cook · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading Ritual: A Very Short Introduction, although my enjoyment came more in the tone of a vigorous wrestling match than in the sweet comfort of a rest in an easy chair.

A review of any book about ritual needs to begin with the understanding that, for people in our complex culture, ritual is a difficult thing to think about, and even more difficult to write about. Barry Stephenson's effort to undertake this challenge is to be celebrated, and if his review of the subject of ritual is imperfect, it is nonetheless extremely helpful for others who are struggling to articulate a culturally-relevant and coherent understanding of what ritual is and how it works.

The difficulty Stephenson faces in writing this little book about ritual is compounded by the academic mire that has accumulated on top of the study of ritual over the last few decades: The study of actual ritual has become almost completely obscured by the construction of the academic field of ritual studies. The study of actual rituals has diminished as ritual studies scholars have taken more time talking abstractly about the subject of ritual, gummed up in the thoughts of philosophers such as Michel Foucault, who never actually got out in the field and studied culture as anthropologists do, or used to do.

Stephenson's book is not so much an introduction to ritual as it is an introduction to ritual studies. In its summary of the state of ritual studies, it is extremely useful, but by making ritual studies rather than ritual itself its subject, the book becomes infected with the same rambling disconnection that afflicts the academic subdiscipline. So, the reader sees Stephenson take on the elaborate hemming and hawing that is typical of contemporary ritual theorists, "rather than speak of ritual, per se, which connotes a stable, fixed thing". The book isn't to be blamed for this approach, as it is intended to summarize the field, rather than remedy its ailments, but neither is the reader to be blamed for occasionally groaning out loud in exasperation.

Critiquing Johann Huizinga's expansive vision of our own society as saturated with ritual play, Stephenson writes that, "A problem with this line of thinking is that it includes so much that we are left wondering where the “ordinary world” ends and the extraordinary world begins. After all, work, too, is a set-aside space where special rules obtain." It is true that work, as it is constructed in our commercial culture, is remarkably similar in some regards to ritual. This observation would be attended to by a curious researcher, rather than perceived as a reason for theoretical dismissal, as is the case with Stephenson's approach. The dominant ideologies in our culture assert that our society is unlike any other, disenchanted and de-ritualized. Wouldn't it be interesting to consider whether this normative account of cultural reality conceals a contrary operational reality of ritual practiced under any other name?

In dismissing the potential for ritual elements in work, and in other activities developed to a special extent in our complex culture, Stephenson assents to the dominant myth of our time, that of "the relative absence of ritual in modern Western culture". What does not occur to Stephenson, or to the scholars of ritual theory that he represents, is that our complex culture may be enabled by a system of ritualization that is unprecedented in its complexity. He relegates the possibility of present-day rituals to the margins, to times of exception, such as festivals.

Instead, researchers of ritual could look to the remarkable aspects of ritual that are present in the construction of the everyday structures of commercial culture: The movement through school into work, the pilgrimage of the commute, and the astonishing display of symbolic exchange that takes place during shopping, for example. It is my hope that the brief representation of the state of ritual studies found in this book will allow academics in ritual theory to achieve a moment of clarity about the course of their work, inspiring a return to research that is more grounded in the rituals that people actually perform in our own times, to understand not just what ritual has been, but what it is becoming.

[Emily W · Rating 3 out of 5]

More accurately, a short introduction to ritual theory. It wasn't the best of this series but helpful.

[Jason Ray Carney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Generally this is a well wrought VSI about the diversity of scholarly approaches to ritual. Each chapter is thematically focused and takes a specific scholarly approach to ritual and summarizes the scholars' works who share that approach. As a complete newcomer to the idea of "ritual studies," there was much in this short book that interested me, e.g. biological explanations of ritual, the problematics associated with the simplistic idea of ritual as symbolism, ritual's association with magic, the idea of ritual as a distinct form of cognition, the idea of ritual as an anecdote to anomie, etc.. There was one chapter that focused on the difficulty of identifying a distinctive category of human practice that is ritual, and the answer to this problem was pretty unexciting because it relied on Wittgenstein's blasé idea of "family resemblances." There was some brief reflection on Christian liturgy but not much. A quibble I have is that there was a paucity of examples of rituals in this VSI. Nevertheless, it was very insightful and curious to learn about the sophisticated ways people view ritual.

[Alana Godfrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really interesting book in the very short introduction series. I really liked some of the concepts and questions that it brought up. Lots of questions over how ritualization is embeded into our daily lives, how other many try to manipulate society through ritualization to form communities, how to measure effectiveness of ritual; are all participants in a ritual affected in the same way (is ritual always effective), who benefits from ritualization.... some really interesting concepts to consider from this.

The text is quite dense, it reads much more academically than other short intros; there are many differing theories and nothing concrete in the study of ritual which makes this both harder to digest, but also easier to question and to consider your interaction with the subject.

[Cristiana · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting introduction to ritual for a non specialist reader like me. It gives basic definitions and describes the main trends in ritual studies. I didn't find the last chapter about festivities at the same level of the previous ones. But the real flaw in this book, published in 2014, lies in the fact that it leaves out completely the new/old rituals introduced by internet. The author doesn't mention the web at all, not even as a "point for further study". Too bad. As the book is an introduction to ritual and ritual studies, a couple of lines in the introduction explaining why he didn't consider "web rituals" would have been enough.

[Matt Sautman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A scholarly history of big ideas in ritual studies, this book outlines nuances in this field of anthropological study and identifies a groundwork that elicits deeper thinking about ritual. I don’t necessarily understand why this book is not better received, as I found myself taking far more notes on it than I expected. I do, however, think A Very Short Introduction as a series best serves those who literally want an introductory view to a topic rather than those who have a strong foundation and are wanting to further their knowledge in a subfield.

[Taylor Swift Scholar · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my favorite Very Short Introduction in a while! As other reviewers have noted, it is more an introduction to the academic study of ritual rather than an analysis of the concept of ritual itself, but I was super into it. Stephenson briefly described many different theoretical approaches for understanding the concept of ritual. I found it interesting to read about a field I knew nothing about and I am excited to learn more.

[Alyssa Foll · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Oxford's Very Short Introduction series and reading "Ritual" so was no exception. I did think that Stephenson went a little too far into the weeds for an introductory work and spent most of the pages comparing various movements and theorists in the field of ritual studies, but overall, this book delivers on its promise: a thorough, very short introduction.

[rachel :) · Rating 1 out of 5]

i just had to read this for a class, so maybe that is why i hate this so much. but honestly he spent like a hundred pages talking about nothing and it was so annoying i thought i was going to rip my hair out. (i say this respectfully and as a tired college student)

[Nelly Geerts · Rating 3 out of 5]

"It is easier to act oneself into a new way of thinking than think ourselves into a new way of acting"

[Michael Capstack · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing summary of ritual and rites of passage and how different theorists view these topics. These short introduction books are pretty fantastic!

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Helpful to me, especially chapters 5 and 6. ‘Nuff said.

[Michal · Rating 2 out of 5]

I guess I expected something else. Anyway, I think it is fine book. Academic short overview how you can think about rituals.

[Sofía Farrés · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty solid book on the basics of ritual studies. I found chapter 6 particularly interesting and helpful for research on ritual and performance theory.

[Adéla Hromádková · Rating 3 out of 5]

Zajímavé pojetí rituálu a poměrně jednoduše představené. Nedostačující pro studium religionistiky, ale pro "laika" dobré.

[emie · Rating 4 out of 5]

confusing! but class discussions were very helpful

[heather · Rating 2 out of 5]

read for class

[Matthew O'Brien · Rating 2 out of 5]

A book not about ritual, but rather about ritual studies.

[Will · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nearly dnf. This is less an introduction and more an homage to academic who contributed a sentinel work to the discipline. Very jarring to read. I'm sure the expert reviewers enjoyed it, but I did not.

[Samrat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Liked the approach of moving from specific examples to broader movements of theories. Thought the organization suffered a bit as it went on. Not as convinced the Western world is as bereft of routine ritual as Stephenson puts it.

[Wilbur · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite its brevity a comprehensive introduction to the study of ritual.

[Jay Fisher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe more of a 3.5 star book. A detailed analysis of an actual ritual or three would have helped demonstrate how these theories of ritual work.

[Mark Moon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good introduction to the field of ritual studies. The author doesn't take any particular stance himself, but critically examines the perspectives on ritual taken by many other writers.