 |
 |
Yakov, I don't know of any places where syllabi are available, but if I had to teach such a course, here's where I'd start looking: Ronald Grimes, *Readings in Ritual Studies.* Prentice Hall, 1996. An excellent collection of articles on theories of ritual published over the past 20-odd years. Catherine Bell, *Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice.* Oxford. An overview of how the field has been developing. Roy Rappaport, *Ecology, Meaning, and Religion.* Berkeley, '79. Dense, but rewarding. Stanley Tambiah writes interesting things on ritual and religion in Thailand, see especially *Culture, Thought, and Social Action.* Cambridge, Mass., '85. Anything by Jonathan Z. Smith, the current leader of the field of comparative religions, study of meaning in religion. Since I recall that you are interested in spirits (so am I), I'd consider Ioan Lewis, *Ecstatic Religion.* Mary Douglas, *Natural Symbols* and *Purity and Danger* are classics, with the former book also having some interesting stuff on spirits and bodies. Emile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss would be my choices for the foundational folks. Hope this helps! And, if you come accross any particularly helpful urls, could you please share them? Thanks. --Nancy Caciola Department of History UC-San Diego At 12:55 PM 5/21/98 EDT, you wrote: >Does anyone know where I can access a good bibliography and/ or syllabii on >issues relating to "ritual, myth & symbolism" or comparative studies of >religious symbolic practices? Thanks. >Yakov Travis >Brandeis University >Waltham, MA > %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%