| Description |
1 online resource : illustrations (black and white), map (black and white) |
| Series |
Oxford ritual studies series |
|
Oxford ritual studies.
|
| Contents |
1. Into motion -- 2. The Holy Ghost is about to fall -- 3. Crossed signs -- 4. Happy deaths are public deaths -- 5. A chorus of assent will lift us all -- 6. Full stop |
| Summary |
How do rituals achieve their effects? Matt Tomlinson approaches this classic question from a new angle, arguing that participants condition their own expectations of ritual success by interactively creating distinct textual patterns. He presents vivid examples from Fiji, ranging from a Pentecostal 'crusade' to missionary reports of 'happy deaths.' |
|
A classic question in studies of ritual is how ritual performances achieve - or fail to achieve - their effects. In this pathbreaking book, Matt Tomlinson argues that participants condition their own expectations of ritual success by interactively creating distinct textual patterns of sequence, conjunction, contrast, and substitution. Drawing on long-term research in Fiji, the book presents in-depth studies of each of these patterns, taken from a wide range of settings: a fiery, soul-saving Pentecostal crusade; relaxed gatherings at which people drink the narcotic beverage kava; deathbeds at which missionaries eagerly await the signs of good Christians' "happy deaths"; and the monologic pronouncements of a military-led government determined to make the nation speak in a single voice. In each of these cases, Tomlinson also examines the broad ideologies of motion which frame participants' ritual actions, such as Pentecostals' beliefs that effective worship requires ecstatic movement like jumping, dancing, and clapping, and nineteenth-century missionaries' insistence that the journeys of the soul in the afterlife should follow a new path. By approaching ritual as an act of "entextualization"--In which the flow of discourse is turned into object-like texts - while analyzing the ways people expect words, things, and selves to move in performance, this book presents a new and compelling way to understand the efficacy of ritual action |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Notes |
Online resource; title from home page (viewed on March 14, 2014) |
| Subject |
Christianity -- Fiji
|
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Rites and ceremonies -- Fiji
|
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Ritual -- Fiji
|
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Performance -- Religious aspects.
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RELIGION -- Christian Rituals & Practice -- Worship & Liturgy.
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RELIGION -- Institutions & Organizations.
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Christianity
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Performance -- Religious aspects
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Religion
|
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Rites and ceremonies
|
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Ritual
|
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Ritual
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Ritus
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Wirkung
|
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Rites et cérémonies -- Fidji.
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| SUBJECT |
Fiji -- Religion
|
| Subject |
Fiji
|
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Fidschi
|
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Fidji -- Rites et cérémonies.
|
| Form |
Electronic book
|
| Author |
Oxford University Press
|
| ISBN |
9780199358373 |
|
0199358370 |
|
9780199341153 |
|
019934115X |
|
