Divine Comedy: Sacred Play and Subversion in Contemporary Neo-Pagan Festival
- ISBN-10
- 0549689788
- ISBN-13
- 9780549689782
- Series
- Divine Comedy
- Category
- Feminism and theater
- Pages
- 560
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2008
- Author
- Jennifer Madden
Description
This dissertation will explore the apparatus of Pagan cultic performance and sacred play; how Pagans employ ritual practice, performative modes, and play as artistic creations and political statements, as well as pathways to the divine. Questions I hope to answer will include: How do the various rites and festivals of Paganism function as ideological response to contemporary society? In what ways (and for what purposes) do Pagans utilize ritual, festival, theatricality, and radical self-display? What are the liminal possibilities created by a laughter fueled by spiritual concerns? Positioning the Pagan as performer on the societal stage, I will examine ritual performance within the sphere of private festival space in addition to political street protests and performance art. Paganism will also serve as a departure point in the examination of other spiritual, political, and performance practices. Much of my research focuses on issues of theatrical self-display, modes of presentation, and exchanges with the non-Pagan community. I will offer historical precedents of sacred or subversive forms of (often political) play. Primary source materials include participant observation, personal interviews, film, photographs, online communities, and journals. By combining the disciplines of theatre, performance studies, ritual studies, ethnography, and feminist studies, I hope to provide a multivalenced analysis of the formal structure of these proceedings in order to ascertain their cultural significance.
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