Hexametrical Genres from Homer to Theocritus

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Athanasious Faraone
Keyword(s):  
Internal Structure ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Early History ◽  
Classical Period ◽  
Central Importance ◽  
Ritual Studies ◽  
Ritual Performance ◽  
Detailed Picture

This book focuses on the evidence for short, non-epic hexametrical genres as a way of gaining new insights into the variety of their often ritual performance and their early history. It also shows how poets from Homer to Theocritus embedded or imitated these genres to enrich their own poems, by playing with and sometimes overturning the generic expectations of their audiences or readers. In doing so the book combines literary and ritual studies to produce a rich and detailed picture of a number of genres performed in sanctuaries, such as hymns and laments for Adonis, or in other spaces likewise dedicated to traditional speech-acts, such as epithalamia, oracles, or incantations. It deals primarily with the recovery of a number of lost or underappreciated hexametrical genres, which are usually left out of modern taxonomies of archaic hexametrical poetry, either because they survive only in fragments or because the earliest evidence for them dates to the classical period and beyond. Of central importance will be the surviving hexametrical poets, especially those of archaic and Hellenistic date, who embed or imitate traditional hexametrical genres of shorter duration either to give a recognizable internal structure to a shorter poem or to an episode or speech within a longer one.

Evangelical Encounters: The American Tract Society and the Rituals of Print Distribution in Antebellum America

2019 ◽  
Vol 88 (1) ◽  
pp. 200-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonia Hazard
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Distribution Systems ◽  
Affect Theory ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ritual Studies ◽  
Antebellum America ◽  
Poor Whites ◽  
Sacred Objects ◽  
Media Distribution

Abstract The American Tract Society, an evangelical publisher, built one of the largest media distribution systems in antebellum America. Called “colportage” from 1841, the system mobilized hundreds of “colporteurs” who delivered tracts and books to people, mostly poor whites, in their homes across the United States. This article draws on ritual studies and affect theory to argue that colportage encounters were affectively charged rituals in which colporteurs staged a disposition of spaces, bodies, speech acts, and tempos to transmit affect, shape the subjectivity of readers, and consecrate books and tracts as sacred objects. An up-close examination of these encounters puts pressure on ideas of religious print as a democratizing medium, demonstrating that the reception of evangelical texts was conditioned by the forceful processes through which they were delivered into the hands of readers.

Sermons as Practical and Linguistic Performances: Insights from Theory and History

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 132-144
Author(s):  
Abdulkader Tayob
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Ritual Studies ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Historical View ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Marking Time

Abstract Sermons lend themselves to ambiguous identification in the study of religions. On the one hand, they are easily recognisable practices, delivered on particular days of the week, or when special occasions or needs arise. They are usually given in clearly defined places at clearly defined times. They are given by designated or recognized individuals that vary according to the respective religious traditions. On the other hand, sermons are speech performances that may and often do vary from one occasion to the next. While prone to a certain formalism, sermon speech acts are open to variation from time to time, and from preacher to preacher. To extend the possibilities offered by sermons for reflection and analysis, I explore some of the theoretical insights suggested for sermons in ritual studies and from the history of sermons within religious traditions. There is no consensus within ritual studies, but there are some useful ideas and suggestions that cover and extend the practices and speech acts that constitute sermons. More significantly, I found the longue durée of the sermon in the Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam to be more resourceful. The historical view of the sermon in comparable religious traditions brings forth enduring elements such as reading texts, employing rhetoric, producing effects (including affect), signifying and challenging authority, and marking time and space. More than the theoretical models for rituals from anthropology and religious studies, this historical perspective brings out the value of the practices and speech elements that constitute sermons.

Ritual Individuation and Ritual Change

2009 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 340-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carl Seaquist
Keyword(s):  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Fundamental Concept ◽  
Ritual Studies ◽  
Ritual Performance

AbstractWhat makes a ritual performance an instance of one ritual and not another? When we observe unfamiliar rituals, how do we know where one ends and the next begins? Is there a principled way of distinguishing mere preparations from the ritual proper? Can rituals change, and how do we know if they have changed? Current ritual studies methods give us no systematic means of answering such questions. Individuation is a familiar and fundamental concept in philosophy, and it should belong to the methodological toolbox of every student of ritual. This paper provides a solid introduction to some basic problems in ritual studies theory, illustrated by detailed examples from Episcopal liturgy and ritual in New Ireland (Papua New Guinea).

scholarly journals CONTINUITY OF AFROCENTRIC TROPES ABOUT AFRICAN AMERICAN IDENTITY FORMATION IN THE NOVELS BY PAULE MARSHALL AND GLORIA NAYLOR

2020 ◽  
Vol X (32) ◽  
pp. 27-42
Author(s):  
Sandra Novkinić
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
American Literature ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
African American Literature ◽  
Paule Marshall ◽  
Gloria Naylor ◽  
Ritual Performance ◽  
Spiritual Leader

African American literature that is fundamentally a socially symbolic linguistic construct, seeks different ways to expand and continue the use of Afrocentric vernacular tropes of personal and collective identity formation. The five residual oral forms – oratory (including everyday speech acts), myth/ritual performance, legend, tale, and song – as well as satire, irony, and paradox are used by contemporary African American novelists. This paper points to how the legendary black ancestors and elder members of the community, the gifted and often rebellious orator, musician, artist, the spiritual leader, and the messianic figure are equally enduring symbols and tropes. The aim of this work is to show the way in which the contemporary African American novelists Paule Marshall and Gloria Naylor use these (above mentioned) characters and symbols to reconstruct their long struggle as individuals and as community against anti-black racism. Therefore, the focus of this paper is on continuity of Afrocentric tropes in African American personal/collective and female/male identity formation as represented in selected novels by Paule Marshall and Gloria Naylor.

scholarly journals Civic Minstrels in Late Medieval England: New Light on Duties and Careers

2021 ◽  
Vol 52 ◽  
pp. 183-218
Author(s):  
Richard Rastall
Keyword(s):  
Early History ◽  
Medieval England ◽  
English Drama ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Medieval England ◽  
Early English ◽  
First Time ◽  
Detailed Picture ◽  
Special Duties

AbstractThe publications of the ongoing Records of Early English Drama project since 1979 have made available for the first time much early documentation about minstrels, including the civic minstrels or town waits. While this material leaves many questions unanswered, a more detailed picture of the early history of civic minstrels is emerging. This article focusses on three aspects of that history that have not previously been studied as such: the towns that employed civic minstrels by 1509, the minstrels’ possible special duties in ports, and their employment mobility.

Opposites Attract: the Body and Cognition in a Debate over Baptism

Numen ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-145
Author(s):  
Theodore Vial
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Human Action ◽  
The Body ◽  
Rite Of Passage ◽  
Adequate Account ◽  
Ritual Studies ◽  
Adequate Model ◽  
Cognitive Theories ◽  
Recent Developments

AbstractAnalysis of a change in a historical rite of passage, the baptism ceremony in Zurich in the 1860s, shows the relative strengths and weaknesses of recent developments in the field of ritual studies. Those who argue that ritualized action is an embodied negotiation of power relations are helpful in understanding why various groups in society fought either for or against the ritual change. But the weak structural component of these theories and an inadequate model of human action make them unable to account for speech acts in ritual, or for the change in the Zurich ritual. Cognitive theories of ritual are far more successful in explaining the force of specific structural changes. Far from being incompatible, these different approaches to ritual, if based on an adequate model of human agency, are complementary and necessary for an adequate account of the historical ritual change examined.

scholarly journals Emotivity in the Voice: Prosodic, Lexical, and Cultural Appraisal of Complaining Speech

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maël Mauchand ◽  
Marc D. Pell
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Cultural Groups ◽  
Multiple Mediation ◽  
Central Importance ◽  
Interactive Behavior ◽  
Cultural Design ◽  
Tone Of Voice ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Social Act

Emotive speech is a social act in which a speaker displays emotional signals with a specific intention; in the case of third-party complaints, this intention is to elicit empathy in the listener. The present study assessed how the emotivity of complaints was perceived in various conditions. Participants listened to short statements describing painful or neutral situations, spoken with a complaining or neutral prosody, and evaluated how complaining the speaker sounded. In addition to manipulating features of the message, social-affiliative factors which could influence complaint perception were varied by adopting a cross-cultural design: participants were either Québécois (French Canadian) or French and listened to utterances expressed by both cultural groups. The presence of a complaining tone of voice had the largest effect on participant evaluations, while the nature of statements had a significant, but smaller influence. Marginal effects of culture on explicit evaluation of complaints were found. A multiple mediation analysis suggested that mean fundamental frequency was the main prosodic signal that participants relied on to detect complaints, though most of the prosody effect could not be linearly explained by acoustic parameters. These results highlight a tacit agreement between speaker and listener: what characterizes a complaint is how it is said (i.e., the tone of voice), more than what it is about or who produces it. More generally, the study emphasizes the central importance of prosody in expressive speech acts such as complaints, which are designed to strengthen social bonds and supportive responses in interactive behavior. This intentional and interpersonal aspect in the communication of emotions needs to be further considered in research on affect and communication.

De Constructie Van Spreektaken In Grootschalig Peilingsonderzoek

1988 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 81-90
Author(s):  
Gert Rijlaarsdam
Keyword(s):  
Internal Structure ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Language Functions ◽  
Assessment Study ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Available Information

In this article a survey is given of the domain of oracy skills that will be the subject of a periodical repeated nationwide assessment study. The domain for the assessment of eleven-year-old pupils is restricted by two principles. a. The assessment includes communicative behaviour in testing situations which approach every day situations (school as well as non-school) that pupils of that age might find themselves in. b. The description of the skills will be given in so-called 'curricular significant units', units that are recognized by teachers as teachable units. The internal structure of the domain is dominated by two dimensions: the dimension of language functions and the dimension of skills. The dimension of language functions is restricted to transactional language. Distinctions are made between informative (reporting and expository) and conative (regulative and argumentative) subfunctions. These four subfunctions are used as classification units for speech acts. The speech functions and acts are the gists of language situations, generated and formulated by assessors and relevant respondents from various fields. In the dimension of oracy skills, five skills are distinguished: a. to select the information from the available information in the tasks and context; b. to arrange the information in an audible manner; c. to interact with listeners or other participants on the level of content (providing a context for instance) and relationship (termtaking); d. to formulate correctly and fluently; e. to use channel specific features approppriately: volume, tempo, pronunciation, etc. When these two dimensions are crossed, the matrix of curricular significant units is created. For each of the four language functions from three up to six tasks are constructed. Rating will be done via analytical schemes for each skill and by wholistic judgement by trained raters.

Epistemologies of Trauma

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 48-56
Author(s):  
Tyler Tully
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Narrative Therapy ◽  
Affect Theory ◽  
Trauma Theory ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Discursive Practice ◽  
Trauma Studies ◽  
Ritual Studies ◽  
Ritual Performance ◽  
Trauma Memory

Beginning with Cathy Caruth's post-structuralist approach in the early 1990's, the study of trauma, memory, and affect has seen significant growth across many academic disciplines. Recent postcolonial perspectives, however, criticize Caruth's trauma theory for its focus on individual melancholia, its Eurocentric assumptions, and its diminishment of discursive practice and ritual. This article considers the rapidly expanding field of trauma studies, including current neuroscientific and biological approaches, to clarify the depth and breadth of trauma's relation to memory inscription, cultural identity, and the embodied transmission of trauma. Using a comparative methodology to examine the seminal contributions of Ted Jennings to the field of ritual studies (Jennings 1982, 1987, 2014) that correspond with Judith Herman's three-stage narrative therapy process (Herman 1997), this essay suggests that Herman's method of narrative construction conveys unique, embodied knowledge that can be understood as ritual performance. Several case studies are put into conversation with Herman's trauma theory in the conclusion of this paper to illustrate possible correctives to the weaknesses inherent in Caruth's “unspeakability” school of trauma theory—correctives having implications for fields as wide-ranging as cultural history, anthropology, ritual studies, affect theory, collective memory, anthropology, and postcolonial approaches to the study of religion.

scholarly journals A Transаesthetic Interpretation of "Pamięć nareszcie" / "Memory at Last" by Wisława Szymborska

2016 ◽  
pp. 216-233
Author(s):  
Katica Kulavkova
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Analytical Psychology ◽  
Ritual Studies

A Transаesthetic Interpretation of Pamięć nareszcie / Memory at Last by Wisława SzymborskaThis essay attempts to combine several elements relevant for such interpretative practices as hermeneutics, textual explication, speech acts theory, C. G. Jung’s analytical psychology, as well inspirations taken from ritual studies, archetypal literary criticism, and transcendental hermeneutics. This combination of interpretational practices shall be applied to the reading and analysis of Wisława Szymborska’s poem Pamięć nareszcie / Memory at Last. My chief aim is to analyse the ritual dimension of the poem (without disregarding, however, the work’s stylistic features). Wiersz Pamięć nareszcie Wisławy Szymborskiej. Interpretacja transestetycznaNiniejszy esej jest próbą połączenia kilku elementów pełniących ważną rolę w takich praktykach interpretacyjnych jak hermeneutyka, eksplikacja tekstu, teoria aktów mowy, psychologia analityczna C. G. Junga, a także inspiracji płynących z badań nad rytuałem i archetypami, wreszcie z hermeneutyki transcendentnej. Połączenie wymienionych praktyk interpretacji będzie służyło lekturze i analizie wiersza Wisławy Szymborskiej Pamięć nareszcie. Moim głównym celem jest analiza rytualnego wymiaru wiersza (choć także jego cech stylistycznych).

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