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Rational ritual
Why do Internet, financial service, and beer commercials dominate Super Bowl advertising? How do political ceremonies establish authority? Why does repetition characterize anthems and ritual speech? Why were circular forms favored for public festivals during the French Revolution? This book answers these questions using a single concept: common knowledge.
Game theory shows that in order to coordinate its actions, a group of people must form \"common knowledge.\" Each person wants to participate only if others also participate. Members must have knowledge of each other, knowledge of that knowledge, knowledge of the knowledge of that knowledge, and so on. Michael Chwe applies this insight, with striking erudition, to analyze a range of rituals across history and cultures. He shows that public ceremonies are powerful not simply because they transmit meaning from a central source to each audience member but because they let audience members know what other members know. For instance, people watching the Super Bowl know that many others are seeing precisely what they see and that those people know in turn that many others are also watching. This creates common knowledge, and advertisers selling products that depend on consensus are willing to pay large sums to gain access to it. Remarkably, a great variety of rituals and ceremonies, such as formal inaugurations, work in much the same way.
By using a rational-choice argument to explain diverse cultural practices, Chwe argues for a close reciprocal relationship between the perspectives of rationality and culture. He illustrates how game theory can be applied to an unexpectedly broad spectrum of problems, while showing in an admirably clear way what game theory might hold for scholars in the social sciences and humanities who are not yet acquainted with it.
In a new afterword, Chwe delves into new applications of common knowledge, both in the real world and in experiments, and considers how generating common knowledge has become easier in the digital age.
eBook
Isolation
Sim Gill's photograph \"Isolation\" captures Kensington Park Gardens in London during the third national lockdown in the UK. On Mar 23, 2020, the UK's prime minister issued a stark directive: \"You must stay at home.\" Within a mere twenty-four hours, their daily routines and rituals were cast into uncertainty, their usual distractions temporarily vanished, leaving them with existential queries about what lay ahead, the duration of this new reality, and when normalcy might return. For numerous individuals, this marked their first encounter with a paradigm-shifting global event, encompassing remote work and social distancing, as well as upending familiar habitual practices. On reflection, it is important that their narratives surrounding this period respect and reflect a framework that honestly captures the incompleteness and tensions of this unprecedented moment.
Journal Article
Archaeology, Ritual, Religion
The archaeology of religion is a much neglected area, yet religious sites and artefacts constitute a major area of archaeological evidence. Timothy Insoll presents an introductory statement on the archaeology of religion, examining what archaeology can tell us about religion, the problems of defining and theorizing religion in archaeology, and the methodology, or how to 'do', the archaeology of religion. This volume assesses religion and ritual through a range of examples from around the world and across time, including prehistoric religions, shamanism, African religions, death, landscape and even food. Insoll also discusses the history of research and varying theories in this field before looking to future research directions. This book will be a valuable guide for students and archaeologists, and initiate a major area of debate.
1. Introduction to the Theme 2. History of Research 3. Contemporary Approaches 4. The Case Studies 5. Prospects and Conclusion: Prospects, A Future Approach? Towards a Theory of Archaeology and Religion
Timothy Insoll is Lecturer in Archaeology at the School of Art History and Archaeology at the University of Manchester. His previous publications include The Archaeology of Islam (1999), Archaeology and World Religion (2001) and THe Archaeology of Islam in Sub-Saharan Africal (2003)
eBook
Economy and ritual
According to accepted wisdom, rational practices and ritual action are opposed. Rituals drain wealth from capital investment and draw on a mode of thought different from practical ideas. The studies in this volume contest this view. Comparative, historical, and contemporary, the six ethnographies extend from Macedonia to Kyrgyzstan. Each one illuminates the economic and ritual changes in an area as it emerged from socialism and (re-)entered market society. Cutting against the idea that economy only means markets and that market action exhausts the meaning of economy, the studies show that much of what is critical for a people’s economic life takes place outside markets and hinges on ritual, understood as the negation of the everyday world of economising.
eBook
DER TRIBUT VON SŪḪU, DER ASSYRISCHE THRONWAGEN UND DIE ROHRHÜTTE
A chariot drawn by two people, on which the Neo-Assyrian ruler is represented as either sitting on a throne or standing in a “chariot-box”, is attested from Assurnaṣirpal until Assurbanipal. It is deployed on the one hand for short journeys in the immediate environment of the palace or in areas which the king can reach neither by chariot nor on horseback. A similar vehicle is used on seals that contain ritual scenes. Although some details of these seal-scenes showing various reed constructions can be explained through reference to texts, carriages are not mentioned in the ritual texts.
Journal Article