Syllabus
Annotation
Studies of ritual continue to be of critical interest in anthropology. This course explores anthropological approaches to ritual as a universal feature of human social life. Attention will be given to key anthropological concepts (e.g. rites of passage, liminality, anti-structure, communitas, performative aspects of ritual). Although ritual is sometimes considered as primarily related to religion, the anthropological approach requires that ritual be situated not only in religious but also in secular contexts, such as: politics and power relations, the construction of social identities and boundaries, the reproduction and invention of 'tradition' or social memory practices, globalization, commodification etc. We will also problematize the dichotomy of sacred and secular while discussing practices of today’s individualized spirituality. Special focus will be paid to the negotiation of sound dimensions of ritual practice.
Requirements: Minimum 500 words annotations of 6 assigned readings (except from the 1st week) uploaded in the moodle course page, here https://dl1.cuni.cz/course/view.php?id=8610 AND a 10 min powerpoint presentation of a selected ethnographic case of a ritual performance interpreted with the help of theoretical concepts from mandatory readings.
Weekly ONLINE classes through MS Teams: https://teams.microsoft.com/l/team/19%3a96512c78ea2c4c6aa88c08a831ff32f4%40thread.tacv2/conversations?groupId=a86b0698-f7b4-474d-a2aa-5f1597f87f02&tenantId=e09276da-f934-4086-bf08-8816a20414a2
FOR MORE DETAILS SEE THE ATTACHED SYLLABUS 2020.