The Power of Discourse in Ritual Performance: Rhetoric, Poetics, Transformations

The Power of Discourse in Ritual Performance: Rhetoric, Poetics, Transformations
ISBN-10
3825883000
ISBN-13
9783825883003
Category
History
Pages
207
Language
English
Published
2007
Publisher
LIT Verlag Münster
Author
Ulrich Demmer

Description

This volume focuses on the ways discourse is used in ritual performances as an important medium of power, enabling speakers/actors to construct, redefine and transform interpersonal relationships, cultural concepts and worldviews. The various case studies gathered here, from South Asia, South East Asia, Africa and South America, show that recent developments in linguistic anthropology, ritual theory and performance studies provide new conceptual tools to take a fresh look at these issues. The volume thus embraces both the micro level of speech activities as well as the macro level of social and political relationships and brings out the subtle workings of control, authority, and power in situations marked as ritual. Ulrich Demmer is assistant professor at the University of Munich (Germany). Martin Gaenszle is professor for Cultural History of South Asia at Vienna University (Austria).

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