Dear Dave
apologies - I intended to agree with what you had said. I am personally more interested in
approaches to ritual that are informed by, but attempt to go beyond, the structuralist-functionalist
models. Why? I think that although that form of anthropology (and related areas) was helpful,
particularly in pointing to the ways in which ritual could be 'read', and understood to 'do' things, more
recent theoretical work in a host of areas suggests that one needs to move to a more fluid
understanding of how ritual works, what constitutes ritual (one of Asad's points), and thus how
meanings and functions of ritual mutate and change. On this topic, I heard a fascinating paper by
Stuart Airlie last month on Tassilo's ritual 'submission' to 'serfdom' - only, as Stuart tells it, it's all
rather more complex than that. His reading of ritual seemed particularly productive... (I'm not sure
if that paper has been published yet; it was a Royal HIstorical Society lecture).
cheers
john arnold
p.s. BIG thanks to George for searching out Asad electronically. What a star our listowner is!
On Fri, 3 Jul 1998 10:26:05 +0100 (BST) Dave Postles wrote:
> From: Dave Postles <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Fri, 3 Jul 1998 10:26:05 +0100 (BST)
> Subject: Re: High medieval liturgy (fwd)
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
> > functionalism -- but there are others. Maybe (structural-)functionalism is
> > the most appropriate strand for the relationship between medieval religion
>
> Just for the record, I'm quite happy with what John [Arnold] says -- please
> note that I said 'Maybe', but perhaps I should have added a question mark.
> Actually, I would go further and (i) add all Miri Rubin's stuff on Corpus
> Christi, the experience of the eucharist by the peasantry, and 'small groups'
> and (ii) I might say, for example, go back to the
> anthropology, not just to Clifford Geertz (here I would add the volume of
> _Representations_, 59, 1997), but also on ritual to Maurice Bloch, parts of
> James Scott (_Domination and the Arts of Resistance_), Catherine Bell,
> and Humphreys and Laidlaw (_The Archetypal Actions of Ritual_) and a whole host
> more. The point which I think I was making, and in some agreement with John,
> is there are other anthropological approaches than the (structural-)
> functionalist paradigm, however much some (not necessarily me) might think
> that it is the appropriate one in this case.
> Again, nevertheless, I would be interested to hear other perceptions about this.
> since I am in need of guidance and enlightenment and I would like to be open and
> receptive to other ideas.
> --
>
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> % Dave Postles, %
> * Dept of English Local History, [log in to unmask] *
> % University of Leicester e-mail me -- don't 'phone or write %
> * 5, Salisbury Road, http://www.le.ac.uk/elh/pot/intro.html *
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