Aesthetics in Performance Formations of Symbolic Construction and Experience [Paperback]

In various ways, the essays presented in this volume explore the structures and aesthetic possibilities of music, dance and dramatic representation in ritual and theatrical situations in a diversity of ethnographic contexts in Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia. Each essay enters into a discussion of the logic of aesthetic processes exploring their social and political and symbolic import. The aim is above all to explore the way artistic and aesthetic practices in performance produce and structure experience.

Angela Hobartis the coordinating lecturer at Goldsmiths College on Intercultural Therapy and lectures at the British Museum on the Art and Culture of South East Asia.

Bruce Kapfereris Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Bergen, Adjunct Professor at James Cook University and Honorary Professor at University College London.

There is much to recommend in this volume&a fascinating array of cases &an excellent job [by the editors] of introducing the main issues&many of the essays are accompanied by illustrations and photographs that enhance and exemplify the arguments.?????Eyal Ben-AriinJRAI

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements

Introduction:The Aesthetics of Symbolic Construction and Experience
Bruce Kapferer and Angela Hobart

Chapter 1.Making Grown Men Weep
William O. Beeman

Chapter 2.The Buzz of God and the Click of Delight
David Shulman

Chapter 3.Songs of Love, Images of Memory
Saskia Kersenboom

Chapter 4.The Hindu Temple and the Aesthetics of the Imaginary
Rohan Bastin

Chapter 5.Where Divine Horsemen Ride: Trance Dancing in West Africa
Steven M. Friedson

Chapter 6.Sorcery and the Beautiful: A Discourse on the Aesthetics of RituallS°