Religion, Ritual & Performance

Syllabus for Religious Studies Course
Björn Krondorfer, Professor of Religious Studies

(as taught in mid-1990s)

This seminar is designed to introduce students to Ritual Studies as one of the themes in the area of religion and culture. We will search for a definition of "ritual," learn how to describe ritual practices, study the religious, political, social, and aesthetic aspects of performances, and develop criteria that help us to evaluate rituals in their contexts. We will cover a wide spectrum of performative modes, such as sacraments, liturgy, carnival, medieval passion plays, avantgarde theater, dance, rituals of reproduction, and political rites.

The seminar focuses on rituals taken from the Western tradition, though we will occasionally include performances from other cultures. The students are expected to study rituals in a nonbiased way, read theoretical texts, find their own language to describe and analyze rituals, and to create and interpret their own ritualizing activities.

Required Readings:

  • Tom Driver, The Magic of Ritual
  • Lesley Northup, ed., Women and Religious Ritual
  • Ronald Grimes, Reading, Writing and Ritualizing
  • Bjorn Krondorfer, ed., Body and Bible

(and selected material from the following sources):

  • William Doty, Mythography (1986)
  • Ronald Grimes, Beginnings in Ritual Studies (1982) and Ritual Criticism (1990)
  • Victor Turner, The Anthropolgy of Performance (1986)
  • Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and his World (1965)
  • Alexander Franklin, Seven Miracle Plays (1963) and V.A. Kolve, The Play Called Corpus Christi (1966)
  • Christopher Innes, Holy Theatre (1981)
  • Eileen Blumenthal, Joseph Chaikin (1984)
  • David Kertzer, Ritual, Politics and Power (1988)
  • Bruce Lincoln, Discourse & Construction of Society (1989)
  • Garth BakerFletcher, "Black Bodies, Whose Bodies?" Men's Bodies, Men's Gods, ed. Krondorfer
  • Karen & Jeffrey Paige, Politics of Reproductive Ritual (1981)
  • James Goehring, "Libertine or Liberated: Women in the SoCalled Libertine Gnostic Communities," in Images of the Feminine in Gnosticism, ed. Karen King (1988)
  • Rahel Wasserfall, "Menstruation and Identity," in People of the Body: Jews and Judaism from an Embodied Perspective, ed. Howard EilbergSchwartz (1992)
  • Zalman Schachter, "How to Deal With a Jewish Issue: Circumcision," in A Mensch Among Men: Exploration in Jewish Masculinity, ed. Harry Brod (1988)
  • Jerzy Grotowski, Towards a Poor Theatre (1968)

OUTLINE (as taught in mid-1990s)

I. Defining Ritual and Performance

General Introduction
The Task of Ritual
The History of Ritual Studies
Worship and Ritual (film: Holy Ghost People)
Ritual Forms and Functions
Liturgy, Sacraments, Creed: Rituals of Containment
Carnival & Celebration: Rituals of Excess

II. Ritualizing in a "Sacred" Context: Text, Play, Drama, Performance

The Biblical Tradition
Bibliodrama: Cain, Abel, & Co
Medieval Play
Avant-Garde Performance (film: The Serpent by The Open Theatre)
Discussion of The Serpent; film: Jesus of Montreal
Discussion of Jesus of Montreal

III. Ritualizing in "Secular" Contexts: Power, Sexuality, Art

Rituals of Power
Film clips from Triumph of the Will by Leni Riefenstahl
Rituals of Empowerment: An African-American Legend
Film John Henry by the Harlem Dance Theatre
Reproductive Rituals: Initiation
Libertine Gnostics and the Oneida Community
The Jewish Experience
Experimental Theatre: film clips from Akropolis by Grotowski
Performance and Spirituality: film: Revelation by Alvin Ailey

IV. Outlook & Ritual Celebration