Adapting Wittgenstein's concept of the human species as 'a ceremonial animal', Wendy James discusses in a readable and lively style the conceptual ordering of space, time, and rhythm; the mutualities of language, consciousness, ritual and religious practice; the dialectics of gender and generation; power, war, and peace; and large-scale modern social formations such as the city and the nation. The Foreword is by Michael J. Lambek, Professor of Anthropology, University of Toronto.

. Human ceremonial ritual is considered as an evolved behavior, one of the principal effects of which is the promotion of intragroup cohesion by decreasing or eliminating intragroup aggression. It is seen as a major determinant of what Victor Turner calls communitas in human social groups of varying extension. The frequent paradoxical effect of ritual's promoting extragroup aggression at the same time that it diminishes intragroup aggression is considered. A neuroevolutionary model of the development and social effects of ritual behavior (...) is presented, being derived from both ethology and recent neurophysiological studies in humans. (shrink)

Later life is often seen as a time of losses. Through the death of loved ones and the dwindling of bodily capacities, older people are increasingly confronted with their own mortality. As losses accrue across different domains, they form a unique existential vantage point. We aim to shed light on this understudied dimension of later life by analysing older people’s everyday practices of sense-making. Drawing on the findings of a qualitative interview study (_n_=16, aged 65-93), we identify three distinct practices (...) by which older people make sense of death and bereavement: timing, communing, and missing. We conceptualise these practices as “farewell ceremonies,” a term we borrow from Simone de Beauvoir. The “farewell ceremony” describes a period of incremental goodbyes, which characterised the last ten years of Jean-Paul Sartre as well as the death process of Beauvoir’s mother Françoise. Beauvoir captures these farewell ceremonies in her memoirs _Adieux: A Farewell to Sartre_ and _A Very Easy Death_, which frame our philosophical reflection on practices of timing, communing, and missing. Bringing together Beauvoir’s literary and philosophical work with our empirical findings, we propose an integrated view on death and bereavement in later life that centres the intertwining perspectives of self and other. (shrink)

Choreography and Ceremony: The Artful Side of Action "Actions" are normally thought of as taken by individuals. But to understand their quality, it is not enough to classify them from the perspective of individual psychology (rational vs. emotional, technical vs. artistic, etc.). We need to grasp their relation to those forms of collective life which have a historical existence independent of specific individual action (institutions, the conventions of social gathering, the organizing principles of games, architecture, music, ritual, etc.). This (...) paper focuses on what characteristics such forms of collective life share, not what seems to separate them (eg. into sacred vs secular, technology vs creative art). The main features emphasized are their choreography, that is their enactment within commonly understood patterns of a spatial and temporal kind, as well as rules of interactive movement; and their ceremonial character, something which can be found in simple situations such as a conversation or a meal, though much more intensely in major religious ritual. A particularly resonant image for these enactments of social life is the dance. Because there is a ceremonial aspect to all social interaction, the paper argues that individual action, necessarily oriented to the social context, always has an "artful" side (however habitual or technical). The paper draws on the writings of Wittgenstein on action, and those of Collingwood on language and art, to shape the argument. Illustrations are provided of the "artful" employment of language (especially by actors on the stage), the "artful" side of material culture, and from the author's own ethnographic studies, the significance of dance among Sudanese refugees in Ethiopia. (shrink)

The cult and ritual sphere is an important component of the religious complex, which is usually understood as a collection of ritual acts related to the worship of supernatural reality and aimed at achieving the bond of the believer with the object of worship. As an inalienable attribute of the religious phenomenon, the cult was created along with its occurrence and is characterized by the complication of manifestation in the process of historical development. Having an amazingly wide arsenal of expression, (...) the ritual is usually formed on a specific religious basis and includes the cultural and artistic means of realization, ethnological features of embodiment, political and ideological factors of the order. In addition, at the level of interreligious interaction, the ritual ritual complex accumulates many elements of previous beliefs, symbolic and symbolic nature of which allows us to speak about the continuity of the religious tradition. In fact, this feature of ceremonial actions gives grounds to speak of a ritual ritual complex as a unique symbiotic entity, in spite of the fact that religious adherents are often considered to be an exclusive ritual, that is to say, the indisputable nature of their cult professed, whereas in the perception and appreciation of the wider public, associate with the top national achievements, sacred property. (shrink)

In this article, we analyse two basilikoi logoi by Theophylact of Ohrid addressed to the emperors Constantine Doukas (1081-1091?) and Alexios I Komnenos (1081-1118) and contest recent scholarship which traces criticism to Alexios I by the use of subversion of traditional rhetorical topoi. We do not question the presence of such subversions, but rather their function in the text. For that, they are studied in their performative contexts: ceremonial events, performative practices and the political circumstances in which their composition possibly (...) took place and when they were performed. By doing so, it is noticeable that criticism to the emperor in such situations is hardly conceivable and the inadequacies of the praises present in the texts can be interpreted as a response to already existing criticism to current imperial policy. Moreover, by comparing both orations as autonomous works, it is possible to perceive a clear shift both in the power balances in the recently established Komnenian consortium and in the relationship between Theophylact and major political player of his time. (shrink)

'Alors, c'est la cérémonie des adieux?' m'a dit Sartre, comme nous nous quittions pour un mois, au début de l'été. J'ai pressenti le sens que devaient prendre un jour ces mots. La cérémonie a duré dix ans : ce sont ces dix années que je raconte dans ce livre.

The focus of this essay is Sylvia Wynter’s conception of ceremony. I argue that ceremonies provide the conditions for a new conception of what it means to be human, that is no longer hierarchical. As such, both ceremonies and this new human are necessary for processes of liberation. In order to be liberatory, however, ceremonies must be place-based and yet fluid and mobile, are steeped in history and are thrust into the future, depend upon community, and impact daily experiences. (...) I argue that employing the best aspects of ceremony can provide the tools for developing coalitional movements, which are often already employed by Black and Indigenous communities. I call this process ceremonies of liberation. (shrink)

This chapter explores the making of a humanist ceremony, and discusses why self‐identified humanists and secularists, who often define themselves within the tradition of ‘free thought’, want to foster ceremonies, given that ceremonies so often connote the routine, discipline, and authority associated with religion. It focuses on funerals provided by celebrants in the British Humanist Association (BHA), the most important non‐religious organization in the United Kingdom, and one of the world leaders in the development of such ceremonies. A ‘non‐religious’ (...) funeral, then, is one in which a conscious decision has been made to ground the event and its importance within ‘the immanent frame’. Anthropologists often observe that ritual speech and action carry particular meaning and force. Ritual frames a social world, and it communicates and validates a particular way of looking at the world. (shrink)

The white coat ceremony is a common practice at many American and European medical schools. Current justification for the ceremony is mainly based on the good will felt by participants and an assumed connection between the ceremony and encouraging humanistic values in medicine. Recent critiques of the ceremony faults its use of oaths, premature alignment of students and faculty, and the selective appropriation of meaning to the white coat itself. This paper responds to recent critiques by (...) addressing their misconceptions and arguing that the white coat ceremony is a contemporary medical ritual with a key role for students and faculty in developing a professional identity.Since its inception in 1993, the white coat ceremony has become a national and international phenomenon. It is now practised at the beginning of the year at more than 100 American medical schools and is supported by foundation grants dedicated to endorsing and encouraging professional development and humanism in medicine.1 While some literature addresses the symbolism and history of the white coat itself, few sources consider the meaning of the ceremony.2–4 A common appeal is to the emotion and good will felt at the event.1,5 Although feelings are important, a deeper justification is called for.Criticism of the WCC is more explicit, charging that the ceremony: uses the Hippocratic Oath inappropriately or, at best, prematurely; fosters improper student faculty relationships, and; interprets the meaning of the white coat selectively.6,7 Critics suggest either that students not be asked to swear an oath together because it might conflict with personally held beliefs, or that students not be allowed to take the oath until they have demonstrated competence as physicians.6 Some also say that the WCC aligns students with faculty and against patients.6 The third …. (shrink)

Dominic McIver Lopes and Yuriko Saito claim that the Japanese tea ceremony, or chadō, is a non‐Western art form. Stephen Davies also defends that claim. In this article, I utilize the tea ceremony as a test case for pancultural definitions of art that claim to be inclusive of non‐Western cultures without relying on Western ethnocentrism to justify their status as artworks. I argue that Davies's (2015) hybrid definition is not justified in assuming a homogenous art tradition and/or a (...) unified conception of artistic practices in a non‐Western culture. Moreover, the cladistic structure of his definition fails to accommodate the spontaneous instantiation of new art traditions. Additionally, Jerrold Levinson's Intentional‐Historical definition cannot satisfactorily accommodate chadō. First, the nonart origins that were formative for the regard that is required for appreciation of the tea ceremony mean that the relational interpretation of the definition fails. Second, Rikyū’s tea ceremony does not count as art incidentally, as it is not a form of mimesis nor does the Japanese wabi aesthetic that is central to chadō have a precursor in known Western art. Third, if chadō does satisfy Levinson's extended theory, it comes at the cost of embracing Western ethnocentrism. (shrink)

Tout pouvoir politique se manifeste et par sa maîtrise de la contrainte et par la possibilité qu'il a de se dramatiser dans des cérémonies qui visent à intégrer et à mobiliser les administrés pour des actions communes. Il affirme simultanément sa légitimité, ses hiérarchies et ses priorités. Les exemples des rites du protocole, des élections municipales, des inaugurations et intronisations énoncent comment le politique se donne en spectacle et quels effets sociaux produisent de telles démonstrations. Outre les conditions les plus (...) favorables à l'apparition des rites, sont examinées la dynamique et l'obsolescence de ceux-ci selon les régimes politiques, ainsi que les raisons expliquant l'intérêt actuel des anthropologues pour les liturgies politiques.All political power is manifested and his mastery of stress and the ability he has to dramatize in ceremonies designed to integrate and mobilize administered for joint actions. He says its legitimacy simultaneously, hierarchies and priorities. Examples of rites protocol, municipal elections, inaugurations and state inductions how politics makes a spectacle and what social effects produce such demonstrations. In addition to the conditions most favorable to the emergence of rites are examined the dynamics and obsolescence as these political regimes, as well as the reasons for the current interest anthropologists liturgies for politicians. (shrink)

Foucault only refers to Shakespeare in a few places in his work. He is intrigued by the figures of madness that appear in King Lear, Hamlet, and Macbeth. He occasionally notes the overthrow of one monarch by another, such as in Richard II or Richard III, arguing that “a part of Shakespeare's historical drama really is the drama of the coup d’État.” For Foucault, the first are illustrations of the conflict between the individual and the mechanisms of discipline. The second (...) are, however, less interesting than moments when the sovereign is replaced, not with another sovereign, but with a different, more anonymous, form of power. Yet, in his 1976 Collège de France course, Society Must Be Defended, where he treats the theme at most length, he intriguingly suggests that Shakespearean historical tragedy is “at least in terms of one of its axes, a sort of ceremony, or a rememorialization of the problems of public right.” Foucault was long fascinated by the theatre, and especially its relation to political ceremony. Drawing especially on his 1972 lectures in Paris and a related presentation in Minnesota, this paper asks how we might understand the relation between ceremony, theatre, and politics in Foucault and Shakespeare. Many of Shakespeare's plays, both histories and tragedies, thus demonstrate the importance of ritual and ceremony, a political theatre. Examining the disrupted ceremony of King Lear, the repeated ceremony of King John, the denial of ritual in Coriolanus, and the parody of the ceremonial in Henry IV, Part One opens up a range of historical, theoretical, and political questions. (shrink)

Cet article présente une grille théorique qui associe les grandes représentations rituelles contemporaines à un jeu de cadres mêlant le sérieux et le jeu et pouvant se déployer sous des formes différentes : spectacle, fête, compétition, cérémonie. Quelques exemples, comme les voyages du pape, les fêtes folkloriques, les matches de football et l'expérience de la convivialité, tentent d'illustrer la fécondité possible de cette analyse.This paper presents a theoretical framework that combines great contemporary ritual performances in a frameset combining seriousness and (...) play and can be deployed in different forms: show, party, event, ceremony. Some examples, such as the Pope's travels, folk festivals, football matches and experience the friendliness, attempting to illustrate the possible fertility of this analysis. (shrink)

In the article, the vocabulary related to the wedding ceremony in the Pamiri languages is discussed. In particular, vocabulary reflecting the wedding ceremony in Ishkashimi language is almost unknown. In the Pamiri languages are still preserved all the traditional wedding ceremonies. The vocabulary associated with them is well-kept in full and is indigenous and sometimes borrowed. For the most, the terminology applied in the ritual is borrowed. Often the term is borrowed from Badakhshan dialect of the Tajik language. (...) At the same time, some Tajik words are used in specific meaning that is typical only to the dialect of Badakhshan and Dari language of Badakhshan in Afghanistan. This is mainly the vocabulary associated with traditional ways and procedures of the wedding ceremony. Some other words, such as sarbьzьrg ’to give respect, attention to mourners’, can be observed only in classical Persian literature. In view of the Islamization of the region the Arab terms are frequently used in rituals; they are associated with official terminology applied during the marriage process and designate its legal aspects. There are also Turkic lexis that was included into the dictionary because of language and cultural contacts in the region. It is significant that in the lexicon predominate metaphorical and descriptive ways of designation of the ceremonies. Remarkable specific vocabulary with original meaning is of particular use in the local minor Iranian languages in comparison with such major written national languages as Tajik language of Tajikistan and Dari Afghanistan. For example, in Ishkashimi language the word dumod is used only in the sense of ‘son-in-law‘, and in the meaning of ‘bridegroom‘ - only Å¡amard. Since the marriage and wedding ceremony has a special place in the spiritual culture of the people, the symbolic function is included into almost all the rites and ritual objects of it. During the ceremony, people wish of fertility, happiness, coming together and family well-being for the whole family and for the newlyweds. Thus, the terminology associated with these rites is preserved for a long time in the language; equally strong are numerous ritual prohibitions related to marriage. (shrink)

The article discusses work ethos in American ceremonial discourse addressed to the young entering adult life. Its aim is to investigate whether the Protestant work ethic still pervades the American thinking about work. Through a qualitative analysis of the corpus of 100 randomly selected commencement addresses delivered during 2016 and 2017 graduation ceremonies in American universities, it is shown how work-related topics are employed by the speakers celebrating the graduates’ academic achievements and providing them with advice for the future. The (...) Discourse-Historical Approach, committed to Critical Discourse Analysis, has been chosen as a methodological approach, integrating the interpretation of discourses and texts with sociological and historical research, studies on narration, stylistics, rhetoric and argumentation theory. As the discourse to be analyzed is culture-specific, I have decided to combine the Discourse-Historical Approach with Cultural Studies. (shrink)

A “white coat” ceremony functions as a rite of passage for students entering medical school. This comment provides a second option in response to the earlier, more enthusiastic, discussion of the ceremony by Raanan Gillon. While these ceremonies may serve important sociological functions, they raise three serious problems: whether the professional oath or “affirmation of professional commitment” taken in this setting has any legitimacy, how a sponsor of such a ceremony would know which oath or affirmation to (...) administer, and what the moral implications of this “bonding process” are. I argue that the initiation oath is morally meanignless if students are not aware of its content in advance, that different students ought to commit to different oaths, and that bonding of students to the medical profession necessarily separates them from identification with lay people who will be their patients. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Laws, & Gods: Magistrates & Ceremony in the Regulation of Public Lands in Republican RomeT. Corey BrennanGargola, D. J. Lands, Laws, & Gods: Magistrates & Ceremony in the Regulation of Public Lands in Republican Rome. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995. x 1 270 pp. Cloth, $43.95. (Studies in the History of Greece and Rome)“Nothing could have contributed more to the safety, strength and (...) profit of the state.” Thus Niccolò Machiavelli (Disc. II 6), one of the first of a long line of moderns to expatiate on the phenomenon of Roman Republican colonization. The latest (at time of writing) is D. J. G[argola], with his learned Lands, Laws, & Gods, which has its origins in the author’s 1989 University of North Carolina dissertation. The book takes as its general subject not just Republican colonization but also another well-trod area of Roman public policy—the agrarian legislation that distributed state land and regulated its use—as well as the religious and technical aspects of Roman land definition.Can we really expect much new on these traditional topics? Perhaps not, [End Page 143] especially now that we have Dieter Flach’s Römische Agrargeschichte (Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft 3.9, Munich 1990)—a masterly synthesis that G. oddly has missed. Yet G. independently manages to come up with a work of value. The bulk of G.’s book (chapters 2–7) consists of detailed reconstructions, especially from the evidence of Livy 21–45 (not much used by Flach), of how colonies were established, viritane plots assigned, and land sold or leased in the mid-Republic. Here G. has sifted through a small mountain of difficult evidence (and bibliography) of widely varying worth and succeeded in shaping a coherent narrative. He has a keen eye for technical and conventional language, and sound judgment on the limits of applying evidence from the various Gromatici (none of whom were writing much before the second century a.d.) to the Republican situation. In short, G. in these pages has crafted a reliable and readable English language work of reference on all sorts of res agrariae.The emphasis in chapters 2–7 is not so much on evolution in the administration of agrarian and colonial legislation—G. argues (somewhat provocatively) that there was not much development of institutions within this period—but on creating a composite picture of how things worked. G. realizes “the result is necessarily an idealized portrait,” in which the system appears more regular than it perhaps was (10–11). One additional trouble, however, is that this approach sometimes flattens potentially significant details. Take for instance the two commissions of colonial IIIviri created under a lex Aelia of late 194 (Liv. 34.53.1–2), one of which went on to found Copia (193), the other Valentia (192). Now, the reported terms of this law provided that the commissioners hold imperium—quite striking, though G. misses that detail—for three years (i.e., 193–91) to colonize the ‘ager Thurinus’ and the ‘Bruttii’ respectively. G. is over-optimistic in calling these territories “stable, long pacified regions” (63). If so, why the imperium? One possible explanation. The territorial parameters placed on each of these commissions (especially ‘the Bruttii’) were quite loose. Those IIIviri may have been expected to take wide-ranging measures to strengthen Roman control over dissidents in this area (cf. App. Hann. 61.252–53), even after they established their colonies. (Note that each of these commissions completed their ostensible tasks before their triennium expired.) If true, how many other colonial commissions were like these?It is only in chapters 8 and 9, where G. surveys agrarian programs from the Gracchi to the end of the Republic, that we see an attempt to show real development. The Gracchi in their agrarian legislation sought to achieve broader effects than any of their predecessors, argues G. in chapter 8, and so introduced agrarian laws that “ended the rigid separation of categories found in mid-Republican legislation” (176). Consider the lex Sempronia agraria of 133, which, in its final form, established IIIviri a(gris) i(udicandis) a(dsignandis) to settle coloni on public land taken from illegal possessores. In this law... (shrink)

Signing Ceremony of MOU on Professional Legal Diploma, Government of Dubai 2020.

I shared Raanan Gillon’s1 surprise at Robert Veatch’s criticism of the white coat ceremonies,2 and I think that the points raised by Veatch were quite adequately countered by Gillon’s response. The provocative points raised by Veatch do stimulate some valuable critical thinking about the process, although I think Veatch was carried away a bit by hyperbole. To label the drama of the ceremony as “ominous” goes a bit far by any criterion.I should like to describe an oath taking initiation (...) ceremony in use at the Ben Gurion University Faculty of Health Sciences for almost three decades, its history, features, current practice, and conclusions. I believe that Veatch’s specific objections are addressed by our process and merit consideration by other institutions as well.When the medical school was founded in 1974 the then dean , Professor Moshe Prywes, met with the just entering class several weeks before the onset of the academic year during a summer preliminary orientation period . Professor Prywes, an imaginative, charismatic innovator with a flair for public relations and the dramatic, suggested to the entering class that they take the physician’s oath during the first weeks of the academic year, coinciding with their first exposure to patients . He explained that he wanted the students to regard themselves as already bearing responsibilities and duties, and not just rights. He saw them as “change agents” working to upgrade the medical care and the health of the patients and community, right from the first days of their schooling.I had just arrived in Israel as a new immigrant to assume the foundation professorship of medicine, coming from …. (shrink)

I read Raanan Gillon’s piece on the defence of medical commitments ceremonies with interest.1 I was, however, disturbed to see that in the ….

The aim of this work is to analyze a political concept derived from a religious myth. I will analyze both by means of the genealogical method of the mimetic violence because this genealogical method looks for the origin of concepts and myths within the human culture. Its basic assumption goes like this: the mimetic sacrifice causes the ritual sacrifice, and the ritual sacrifice causes in its turn the myth and the prohibitions. The political concept, derived from the mimetic violence, is (...) the notion of concord or unanimity.One critic says of René Girard: "Girard is one of the last hedgehog types who survive, according to Isaiah Berlin's typology subtly deduced of Archilochus's dictum: the fox knows many... (shrink)

Stakeholder recognition constitutes a firm’s experience of affirmation and acknowledgment from stakeholders and is deemed essential for organizations to develop positive self-relations and a sense of themselves as morally responsible social actors. Through an in-depth case study, I show how a firm’s varied experiences of stakeholder recognition for its corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts alternately facilitated and hindered the performativity of its aspirational CSR talk through two key processes: (a) a recognition-attainment process whereby the experience of stakeholder recognition helped turn (...) aspirational CSR talk into “substantive” talk with the performative potential to catalyze other CSR practices; and (b) a subsequent recognition-commodification process induced by a perceived misrecognition that ultimately rendered such talk “ceremonial.” Elucidating stakeholder recognition as an undertheorized boundary condition of aspirational CSR talk, this study adds to performative approaches to CSR communication. It further contributes to research on recognition by demonstrating the explanatory potential of Axel Honneth’s notion of recognition in researching business and society interactions. (shrink)

Australian Aboriginal cosmology is centered on The Dreaming, which has an eternal nature. It has been referred to as "everywhen" to articulate its timelessness. Starting with the assumption that "waking" reality is only one type of experienced reality, we investigate the concept of timelessness as it pertains to the Aboriginal worldview. We begin by questioning whether in fact "Dreaming" is an appropriate translation of a complex Aboriginal concept, then discuss whether there is any relationship between dreaming and The Dreaming. We (...) then discuss Aboriginal ceremonial performance, during which actors are said to become Dreaming Ancestors, using as a frame of reference the "flow" experience explicated by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi together with Alfred Schutz's "mutual tuning-in relationship." © 2009 by the Joint Publication Board of Zygon. (shrink)