Ritual Dynamics and the Science of Ritual

This collection of essays is the fifth volume in the Ritual Dynamics and the Science of Ritual series, and represents papers delivered at a conference by the same name in 2008 at the Ritual Dynamics Research Center in Heidelberg, Germany. The collection is divided into two parts. The first looks at the rituals of transfer (marriage, trade, Eucharist, Pentacost) and the innovation of rituals (a kind of transfer) in the context of changing socio-political and geographic circumstances. The second section considers the ritual function of space in terms of architecture, sound production, mobility and visual presentation. The essays are multidisciplinary and multimethodological in approach, and often transcultural in their subject. The contributors are professors, doctoral candidates and research fellows from around the world, with backgrounds in economics, art history, archaeology, Christian history and theology, area studies, sociology and anthropology, and religious studies. The major drawback of the volume is two-fold: there is no index and no editorial introduction, though a collection of abstracts in the back makes up somewhat. The individual essays contain their own notes and citations though, and a PDF version of the book is available on a CD included in the very back, which is searchable. Annotation c2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)