The Craft of Ritual Studies av Ronald L. (Director of Ritual Studies International and Professor Emeritus of Religion and Culture Director of Ritual S

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In religious studies, theory and method research has long been embroiled in a polarized debate over scientific versus theological perspectives. Ronald L. Grimes shows that this debate has stagnated, due in part to a manner of theorizing too far removed from the study of actual religious practices. A worthwhile theory, according to Grimes, must be practice-oriented, and practices are most effectively studied by field research methods. The Craft of Ritual Studies melds together a systematic theory and method capable of underwriting the cross-cultural, interdisciplinary study of ritual enactments. Grimes first exposes the limitations that disable many theories of ritual--for example, defining ritual as essentially religious, assuming that ritual''s only function is to generate group solidarity, or treating ritual as a mirror of the status quo. He proposes strategies and offers guidelines for conducting field research on the public performance of rites, providing a guide for fieldwork on c