GREL 338: Comparative Religious Ritual

Course Description

This course will focus on the rituals performed within religious communities around the world. Rather than looking at religion as a set of beliefs, doctrines, or morals that must have an agreed-upon meaning, this course will observe both ritual actions and variety of meanings (or sometimes the lack of any meaning) that scholars and practitioners attach to these actions. Readings for this course will include essays on ritual theory, ethnographies of performed rituals, and novels that creatively construct social meanings for fictional rituals.