Mayan ethnographer John Early examines the centuries-long speculation about why the ritual calendars of the Mayan Indians in Guatemala and the regions of Chiapas and Yucatan in Mexico revolve around festivals in honor of the Catholic saints. During these festivals, at the insist…
Mayan ethnographer John Early examines the centuries-long speculation about why the ritual calendars of the Mayan Indians in Guatemala and the regions of Chiapas and Yucatan in Mexico revolve around festivals in honor of the Catholic saints.
How can we order the world while accepting its enduring ambiguities? Rethinking Pluralism suggests a new approach to the problem of ambiguity and social order, which goes beyond the default modern position of 'notation' (resort to rules and categories to disambiguate). The book …
Yaktovil is an elaborate healing ceremony employed by Sinhalas in Sri Lanka to dispel the effects of the eyesight of a pantheon of malevolent supernatural figures known as yakku. Scott's investigation of yaktovil and yakku within the Sinhala cosmology is also an inquiry into the…
Sex, smoking, and social stratification are three very different social phenomena. And yet, argues sociologist Randall Collins, they and much else in our social lives are driven by a common force: interaction rituals. Interaction Ritual Chains attempts to develop a "radical mi…
Publisher description: The topic of the origins of theatre is one of the most controversial in theatre studies, with a long history of heated discussions and strongly held positions. In The Roots of Theatre, Eli Rozik enters the debate in a feisty way, offering not just another …