International rituals: An analytical framework and its theoretical repertoires

The performance of ritual and the ritualisation of performance are the two main theoretical repertoires of ritual study in international politics and beyond. However, they also escalate tensions between those who insist on ritual's ability to operate by virtue of participants’ presence and those who believe that global networks of media call for a representational turn, which must tie participants and audiences across borders. Should we fail to understand how these distinct theoretical repertoires interact, it would be difficult to study international ritual, identify its functions, and trace its effects. Anchored in the sociology of ‘social occasions’, this article weaves ritual's patterns, properties, and resources into a coherent analytical framework. The framework enables us to better to grasp how actors move between/within different worlds (ritual and performance) and to what effects. The comparative study of two post-terrorism ritual occasions (the 2011 Rose March in Oslo and the 2015 Republican Marches in France) illustrates the usefulness of this theoretical proposition and its related framework.

Applied Ritual: The Application of Blood and Oil on Bodies in the Pentateuchal Sources

Source critical analyses of the Pentateuch in recent scholarship have focused primarily on literary means for detecting distinct literary voices, and, in some recent publications, historical aspects of, particularly, the P source. In this article, I formulate a distinct approach to source criticism that supports this resurgence of documentary analysis, examining in particular the ritual of blood and oil daubing on bodies in Exod. 19–24, Lev. 8 and 14. After summarizing the main point at issue (namely, access to the divine), I offer a documentary approach using ritual theory in the study of these texts. Finally, I highlight the manner in which the ritual study of Exod.19–24, Lev. 8 and 14 is consistent with both key historical and recent arguments in the documentary approach to the composition of the Pentateuch.

Social and Cultural Anthropology

This chapter looks at the interpretation of ritual in the Hebrew Bible from the perspective of anthropology, which has had a close symbiotic relationship with biblical studies since the emergence of the comparative study of human culture in the 19th century. Beginning in the 1960s, a new wave of anthropological interest in biblical ritual was catalyzed especially by the work of Mary Douglas. Biblical scholars have drawn on anthropologists’ theories of ritual. The dominant approach to ritual in both anthropology and biblical studies identifies it as symbolic, representational activity. This perspective has been challenged by interpreters who highlight the absence of indigenous symbolic interpretation of ritual in a number of societies and urge caution in constructing elaborate symbolic systems for biblical ritual. Study of biblical ritual involves the ethnography of ancient Israelite texts about ritual activity.

Korean Dynasty Confucian Li Huang and Han Yuanzhen’s Contribution on Zhu Xi’s Ritual Study

<p align="LEFT">The Confucians in the era of Korean Dynasty</p><p align="LEFT">have inherited and developed Zhu Xi’s ritual</p><p align="LEFT"><span style="font-family: TrebuchetMS; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: TrebuchetMS; font-size: xx-small;">study. Li Huang, composed </span></span><em><span style="font-family: TrebuchetMS,Italic; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: TrebuchetMS,Italic; font-size: xx-small;">Shengxue Shitu </span></span></em><span style="font-family: TrebuchetMS; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: TrebuchetMS; font-size: xx-small;">based</span></span></p><p align="LEFT"><span style="font-family: TrebuchetMS; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: TrebuchetMS; font-size: xx-small;">on </span></span><em><span style="font-family: TrebuchetMS,Italic; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: TrebuchetMS,Italic; font-size: xx-small;">Jin Si Lu</span></span></em><span style="font-family: TrebuchetMS; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: TrebuchetMS; font-size: xx-small;">, aiming at pursuing prudence and</span></span></p><p align="LEFT">morality, and putting them into practice, had</p><p align="LEFT">great impact on the development of</p><p align="LEFT">Confucianism in Korean Dynasty. Han Yuanzhen</p><p align="LEFT"><span style="font-family: TrebuchetMS; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: TrebuchetMS; font-size: xx-small;">regarded </span></span><em><span style="font-family: TrebuchetMS,Italic; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: TrebuchetMS,Italic; font-size: xx-small;">Yili Jingzhuan Tongjie </span></span></em><span style="font-family: TrebuchetMS; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: TrebuchetMS; font-size: xx-small;">as the second</span></span></p><p align="LEFT">ritual composition made by Confucians after</p><p align="LEFT"><span style="font-family: TrebuchetMS; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: TrebuchetMS; font-size: xx-small;">Zhougong, and developed it into </span></span><em><span style="font-family: TrebuchetMS,Italic; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: TrebuchetMS,Italic; font-size: xx-small;">Yili Jingzhuan</span></span></em></p><em></em><p align="LEFT"><span style="font-family: TrebuchetMS,Italic; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: TrebuchetMS,Italic; font-size: xx-small;"><em>Tongjie Bu </em></span></span><span style="font-family: TrebuchetMS; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: TrebuchetMS; font-size: xx-small;">based on Zhu Xi’s way</span></span><span style="font-family: DengXian-Regular; font-size: xx-small;" lang="JA"><span style="font-family: DengXian-Regular; font-size: xx-small;" lang="JA">，</span></span><span style="font-family: TrebuchetMS; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: TrebuchetMS; font-size: xx-small;">attempting</span></span></p><p align="LEFT"><span style="font-family: TrebuchetMS; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: TrebuchetMS; font-size: xx-small;">at converting the </span></span><em><span style="font-family: TrebuchetMS,Italic; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: TrebuchetMS,Italic; font-size: xx-small;">Yili Jingzhuan Tongjie </span></span></em><span style="font-family: TrebuchetMS; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: TrebuchetMS; font-size: xx-small;">into</span></span></p><p align="LEFT">ritual classics of the era. Li Huang’s development</p><p align="LEFT">of Zhu Xi’s ritual spirit is the localization of</p><p align="LEFT">Confucianism and Zhu Xi’s theory. And Han</p><p align="LEFT">Yuanzhen’s development of annotation of Zhu</p><p align="LEFT">Xi’s theory is the Korean Dynasty Confucians’</p><p>answer to the public issues of Confucianism.</p>