<p>First published in 1978 and hailed by <i>Culture</i> as constituting "an important foreshadowing of issues that have become prominent in more recent anthropology," this classic book, now updated and extensively revised, examines the theological doctrines and popular notions that promote and sustain Christian pilgrimage, including their corresponding symbols and images.</p>

Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture

Arts & Photography

Victor Turner

Edith Turner

History & Criticism

Columbia University Press

This classic book, now updated and extensively revised, examines the theological doctrines and popular notions that promote and sustain Christian pilgrimage, including their corresponding symbols and images.

Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture: Anthropological Perspectives

Religion & Spirituality

Basil Blackwell

A reprint of the seminal anthropological work of the 1960s.Originally published by Manchester University Press.  Victor Turner will be remembered as the anthropologist who developed the concept of the ‘social drama', a method used extensively by anthropologists to describe and analyse the social life of a community. In essence, this technique involves analysing social crises within a community over a period of time in order to gain a better understanding of the key principles that govern the social life of the community.  This book -- Turner's first ‘social drama' study -- focuses on the village life of the Ndembu of Zambia who were then under British rule.  The social constraints, such as the matrilineally-inherited headmanship system, and the various releases from these constraints, provoked periodic crises which caused great disruption and pain.  These crises made visible the contradictions between the principles governing social life and the conflicts experienced between individuals and groups when enforcing these principles.  Seven social dramas are discussed - all from one family over a period of twenty years -- each substantiated by sociological and demographic research.

Schism and Continuity in an African Society

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Manchester University Press

The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual

History

Africa

Cornell Univ Pr

The core of this book is a complete description of two important Ndembu rituals of affliction (Chihamba and Kayong'u), and an analysis of the system of ideas underlying more than a dozen modes of divination. Written by an internationally-known social scientist, the book demonstrates how the study of small-scale events may reveal as much about what it means to be a human being in society as do grand macrosocial and macrocultural surveys.Drawing on two and a half years of fieldwork, Victor Turner offers two thorough ethnographic studies of Ndembu revelatory ritual and divinatory techniques, with running commentaries on symbolism by a variety of Ndembu informants. Striking a personal note in the introductory chapter, Turner acknowledges his indebtedness to Ndembu ritualists for alerting him to the theoretical relevance of symbolic action in understanding human societies. He believes that ritual symbols, like botanists' stains, enable us to detect and trace the movement of social processes and relationships that often lie below the level of direct observation.

Revelation and Divination in Ndembu Ritual (Symbol, Myth, and Ritual)

Cornell University Press

Celebration: Studies in Festivity and Ritual

Smithsonian Institution Press

Turner is all over the globe as he addresses issues of cultural performance, carnival, film, theatre, and "performing ethnography" to break new ground in anthropological thinking about event, spectacle, and audience. One of his last writings, "Body, Brain, and Culture" links cerebral neurology and anthropology studies in a fascinating interface.

The Anthropology of Performance (PAJ Books)

Performing Arts

PAJ Publications

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Books by Victor Turner