Saints Heroes Myths And Rites

Classical Durkheimian Studies of Myth and the Sacred presents English translations of several important essays, some never before translated, by members of the famous Annee sociologique group around Emile Durkheim. These works by Marcel Mauss, Henri Hubert, and Robert Hertz are key contributions to today's growing interest in and reinterpretation of Durkheimian thought on culture, religion, and symbolism. The central thrust in this new interpretive effort uses the Durkheimian theory of the sacred to understand the symbolism and meanings of cultural structures and narratives more generally. This book is vital to any contemporary collection emphasizing social theory.

Classical Durkheimian Studies of Myth and the Sacred presents English translations of several important essays, some never before translated, by members of the famous Annee sociologique group around Emile Durkheim. These works by Marcel Mauss, Henri Hubert, and Robert Hertz are key contributions to today's growing interest in and reinterpretation of Durkheimian thought on culture, religion, and symbolism. The central thrust in this new interpretive effort uses the Durkheimian theory of the sacred to understand the symbolism and meanings of cultural structures and narratives more generally. This book is vital to any contemporary collection emphasizing social theory.

Bodies and their role in cultural discourse have been a constant focus in the humanities and social sciences in recent years, but comparatively few studies exist about Old Norse-Icelandic or early Irish literature. This study aims to redress this imbalance and presents carefully contextualised close readings of medieval texts. The chapters focus on the role of bodies in mediality discourse in various contexts: that of identity in relation to ideas about self and other, of inscribed and marked skin and of natural bodily matters such as defecation, urination and menstruation. By carefully discussing the sources in their cultural contexts, it becomes apparent that medieval Scandinavian and early Irish texts present their very own ideas about bodies and their role in structuring the narrated worlds of the texts. The study presents one of the first systematic examinations of bodies in these two literary traditions in terms of body criticism and emphasises the ingenuity and complexity of medieval texts.

Although research on contemporary pilgrimage has expanded considerably since the early 1990s, the conversation has largely been dominated by Anglophone researchers in anthropology, ethnology, sociology, and religious studies from the United Kingdom, the United States, France and Northern Europe. This volume challenges the hegemony of Anglophone scholarship by considering what can be learned from different national, linguistic, religious and disciplinary traditions, with the aim of fostering a global exchange of ideas. The chapters outline contributions made to the study of pilgrimage from a variety of international and methodological contexts and discuss what the ‘metropolis’ can learn from these diverse perspectives. While the Anglophone study of pilgrimage has largely been centred on and located within anthropological contexts, in many other linguistic and academic traditions, areas such as folk studies, ethnology and economics have been highly influential. Contributors show that in many traditions the study of ‘folk’ beliefs and practices (often marginalized within the Anglophone world) has been regarded as an important and central area which contributes widely to the understanding of religion in general, and pilgrimage, specifically. As several chapters in this book indicate, ‘folk’ based studies have played an important role in developing different methodological orientations in Poland, Germany, Japan, Hungary, Italy, Ireland and England. With a highly international focus, this interdisciplinary volume aims to introduce new approaches to the study of pilgrimage and to transcend the boundary between center and periphery in this emerging discipline.

The Religious Heritage Complex examines heritage-making of Christian-related legacies led by secular and clerical institutions. It argues that the relationship between public policies and spiritual practices is not as clear-cut as some might think. In fact, the authors show that religious activity has always combined care for the past with conscious practices of heritage-making, which they term “the religious heritage complex.” The book considers the ways patrimony, religion, and identity interact in different Christian contexts worldwide and how religious objects and sites function as identity symbols. It focuses on heritage-making as a religious and material activity for the groups in charge of a sacred inheritance and considers heritage activities as one of the forms of spiritual renewal and transmission. Case studies explore various Christian traditions located in Europe, the Americas, and Africa, investigating the longstanding and tightly-enmeshed connections that weave together religion and cultural heritage. Through comparing ecclesiastical and civil heritage institutions, this book allows us to consider the ambiguity of religious heritage.

Using a broad definition of the Durkheimian tradition, this book offers the first systematic attempt to explore the Durkheimians' engagement with art. It focuses on both Durkheim and his contemporaries as well as later thinkers influenced by his work. The first five chapters consider Durkheim's own exploration of art; the remaining six look at other Durkheimian thinkers, including Marcel Mauss, Henri Hubert, Maurice Halbwachs, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Michel Leiris, and Georges Bataille. The contributors-scholars from a range of theoretical orientations and disciplinary perspectives-are known for having already produced significant contributions to the study of Durkheim. This book will interest not only scholars of Durkheim and his tradition but also those concerned with aesthetic theory and the sociology and history of art.

A Companion to Moral Anthropology is the first collective consideration of the anthropological dimensions of morals, morality, and ethics. Original essays by international experts explore the various currents, approaches, and issues in this important new discipline, examining topics such as the ethnography of moralities, the study of moral subjectivities, and the exploration of moral economies. Investigates the central legacies of moral anthropology, the formation of moral facts and values, the context of local moralities, and the frontiers between moralities, politics, humanitarianism Features contributions from pioneers in the field of moral anthropology, as well as international experts in related fields such as moral philosophy, moral psychology, evolutionary biology and neuroethics

When United Flight 93, the fourth plane hijacked in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the gash it left in the ground became a national site of mourning. The flight’s 40 passengers became a media obsession, and countless books, movies, and articles told the tale of their heroic fight to band together and sacrifice their lives to stop Flight 93 from becoming a weapon of terror. In Angel Patriots, Alexander Riley argues that by memorializing these individuals as patriots, we have woven them into much larger story of our nation—an existing web of narratives, values, dramatic frameworks, and cultural characters about what it means to be truly American. Riley examines the symbolic impact and role of the Flight 93 disaster in the nation’s collective consciousness, delving into the spontaneous memorial efforts that blossomed in Shanksville immediately after the news of the crash spread; the ad-hoc sites honoring the victims that in time emerged, such as a Parks Department-maintained memorial close to the crash site and a Flight 93 Chapel created by a local Catholic priest; and finally, the creation of an official, permanent crash monument in Shanksville like those built for past American wars. Riley also analyzes the cultural narratives that evolved in films and in books around the events on the day of the crash and the lives and deaths of its “angel patriot” passengers, uncovering how these representations of the event reflect the myth of the authentic American nation—one that Americans believed was gravely threatened in the September 11 attacks. A profound and thought-provoking study, Angel Patriots unveils how, in the wake of 9/11, America mourned much more than the loss of life.