"The powers of ancient rulers emanated from the ritual center of the tribal territory. This center was also regarded as the birthplace of the tribe and belonged to the people as a whole. Installed upon this sacred rock (the omphalos or "navel of the world"), at the polar axis ar…
Publisher's Description: "In The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure, Victor Turner examines rituals of the Ndembu in Zambia and develops his concept of "Communitas," which in the meantime has become famous. He characterizes it as an absolute inter-human relation beyond…
What role does ritual play in the everyday lives of modern Africans? How are so-called "traditional" cultural forms deployed by people seeking empowerment in a world where "modernity" has failed to deliver on its promises? Some of the essays in Modernity and Its Malcontents addr…
What role does ritual play in the everyday lives of modern Africans? How are so-called "traditional" cultural forms deployed by people seeking empowerment in a world where "modernity" has failed to deliver on its promises? Some of the essays in Modernity and Its Malcontents addr…
A study in poetic interaction, The Odyssey in Athens explores the ways in which narrative structure and parallels within and between epic poems create or disclose meaning. Erwin F. Cook also broadens the scope of this intertextual approach to include the relationship of Homeric …