51-2503 Introduction to Ritual Studies: What is Religion?

What are people doing when they do ritual? In this class we will try to answer this question and use it to think about both the nature of religion and the nature of performance. We will read major theorists of ritual and consider rituals drawn from a wide variety of traditions, religious and otherwise. We will also go into the community to observe and analyze rituals practiced in Chicago, using our grounding in ritual theory to move productively between theory and data.

3 Credits
HU
Requisites PREREQUISITES: 52-112