Ritual and Its Consequences: An Essay on the Limits of Sincerity

by Adam B. Seligman, Bennett Simon, Michael Puett, et al.

Book Overview

This pioneering, interdisciplinary work shows how rituals allow us to live in a perennially imperfect world. Drawing on a variety of cultural settings, the authors utilize psychoanalytic and anthropological perspectives to describe how ritual--like play--creates "as if" worlds, rooted in the imaginative capacity of the human mind to create a subjunctive universe. The ability to cross between imagined worlds is central to the human capacity for empathy...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195336011
• ISBN13: 9780195336016
• Release Date: March 2008
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 248 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 9.1"