To date, there has been no detailed or comparative analysis of the repertory known as the Old-Roman Chant. Although the historical and liturgical problems created by the recent discovery of this repertory may be found in scattered writings, no one has published a detailed study of the music itself. Those that have written on the Old-Roman melodies have confined their attention to isolated examples. This study is concerned with the Introits, Offertories, and Communions of MS Vat. lat. 5319, an Old-Roman Graduale which dates from the late eleventh century. Whenever possible, a comparison has been made with their Gregorian counterparts. The introduction summarizes the basic, historical study of the Old-Roman repertory; the three main chapters treat each antiphon cycle in turn; and the final chapter places the work of this thesis in an overall context. That we are dealing with an early repertory is indicated by such features as the close relationship between the Communion antiphons and their verses and the striking uniformity in cadential patterns. Although the Old-Roman version bear a close musical relationship to the Gregorian, certain evidence indicates that they are earlier. The basic form of all the Old-Roman Mass antiphons is clearly a recurring psalm-tone formula which usually appears in an ornamented form throughout the chant. This feature is not as evident in the Gregorian melodies and may well be a link to an earlier oral tradition. An example is offered for the difference in melodic style between the Old-Roman Introits, Offertories, and Communions. The Offertories and Communions can be seen as elaborations of earlier simpler forms still represented by the Introits. In short, the ornate antiphons of MS Vat. lat. 5319 are shown to be, basically, redactions prior to their Gregorian counterparts. / Arts, Faculty of / Music, School of / Graduate

This dissertation analyzes the means by which ritual traditions changed and spread throughout the Roman provinces in Gaul in the first two centuries CE. While numerous scholars have studied ritual shifts in Roman Gaul with a focus on material culture and imagery, this has not been accompanied by a focus on the negotiations involving the non-elite. By including non-elite Gauls in the analysis, my research creates a full picture of religious change that traces how the traditions evolved and how these adaptations spread across the region. This project argues that ritual sites, practices of ritual deposition, monuments depicting the gods, burial traditions, burial stelae, and some commercial production were all part of the cultural negotiation regarding ritual among Gauls of various levels in the social hierarchy. Communication of these cultural negotiations was transmitted along the trade and pilgrimage travel routes in Gaul, including both roads and rivers. Numerous individuals used these routes and discussed their own ideas and learned about other views of the gods on their journeys. As these ideas spread, they gradually standardized. This regional study, that covers a broad periodization, states that the provinces of Gaul adopted Roman ritual imports into their religion through a nuanced series of local cultural negotiations that were still part of a regional network connected by travel routes. This process takes into account communal choices in regional changes. By broadening the focus of the study of provincial societies, this dissertation shows that the changes brought into new areas by the Romans created a complex network of negotiation, which crossed social hierarchies and geographical boundaries.

I den här uppsatsen har jag applicerat ett ritualperspektiv i en ny situation, nämligen sociala medier. Uppsala Gäris är en separatistisk grupp för kvinnor och ickebinära med koppling till Uppsala och Uppsala län. I uppsatsen frågade jag hur ritualerna i Uppsala Gäris ser ut och vad de har för beståndsdelar, varför ritualerna sker och vilka sociala ordningar som ses som problem och vilka ritualen försöker etablera. Jag frågade också hur communitas manifesterar sig och organiseras i Uppsala Gäris. Genom intervjuer och netnografi har jag kommit fram till att ritualerna är oförutsedda och orienterade efter gruppen, eftersom mycket fokus ligger på gemenskapen och dess communitas och förnyande kraft. Communitas uppstår på grund av gruppens gemensamma upplevelse av att de är utsatta i Uppsala och vilja att etablera en ny social ordning.

In this study, the Eucharist as a liturgical ritual celebrated in the online space is explored. The study begins with an exploration of the terms worship, liturgy and ritual, settling on the term liturgical ritual. The methodology of practical theological interpretation is then considered, with the first step, the descriptive-empirical task being undertaken. The conceptual framework for the study is located within the postmodern discourse of liminality, using the metaphors of language, play, bricolage, embodiment, time and space to explore the intersection of liturgical ritual, network culture and liminality. A literature survey considers the research completed in the area of online ritual, and highlights two major themes, those of embodiment and community, which challenge the Eucharist online becoming a reality. / Dissertation (MPhil)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / tm2015 / Practical Theology / MPhil / Unrestricted

This dissertation addresses one of the classical philosophical and theological problems of religious language, namely, how to speak meaningfully about matters that appear to be inexpressible. While addressed extensively in a variety of literatures across cultures, the problem persists, particularly in regard to harmonizing theological, philosophical, and linguistic perspectives. The dissertation argues that (i) language is best understood as a species of ritual; (ii) so understood, religious language speaks to and about religious realities subjunctively, that is, as if such realities could be talked about; and (iii) this way of understanding language achieves greater harmony among philosophical and linguistic approaches while achieving some degree of cross-cultural generality. The argument begins with a cross-cultural comparison between modern social scientific ritual theories, especially that of Roy A. Rappaport, and the Confucian ritual theory of Xunzi. This generates a novel theory of ritual capable of engaging theories of language that have emerged in modern linguistics, philosophy of language, logic, and hermeneutics. The semiotics of Charles Sanders Peirce provides the unifying framework for the theory, which leads to the first conclusion that language can be understood as a species of ritual. When language is understood as ritual, there are several options for interpreting religious speech as meaningful. An analysis of these alternatives on terms semantically demarcated by Hilary Putnam leads to the conclusion that language expresses theological insights in the same way it expresses anything else: as if reality and its elements were the way the language form and process construes and renders them. This analysis both advances critiques of language as understood under the linguistic turn, especially by Terrence W. Deacon and Daniel L. Everett, and establishes the second and third conclusions of the thesis. The proposed theory of language as ritual is in need of further development in the directions of a philosophy of mind, an underlying metaphysical semiotics, and a comparative logic. But it does formalize a novel solution to a long-standing problem in religious language that is applicable to a wide variety of religious-cultural contexts and capable of registering insights from several relevant disciplinary domains.

This dissertation focuses on the Izanagi-ryū, a Japanese folk religion closely associated with the Monobe region in Kōchi Prefecture, to study the challenges faced by local communities in preserving and transmitting their intangible cultural heritages. Using an interdisciplinary approach that combines historical and textual analysis with observational ethnographic studies of actual ritual practices and performances, the study of Izanagi-ryū is intended to draw out the ways in which competing narratives amongst local communities and institutional rhetoric over the preservation of intangible cultural heritages affect the transmission of local cultural practices. The strategies undertaken by the practitioners of Izanagi-ryū to construct their local identities and legitimize their status within the framework of governmental policies and scholarly rhetoric will be examined, along with studying the effects of modifying ritual spaces and procedures to fit contemporary demands and limitations.This research encourages us to look deeper into the repercussions of cultural preservation whereby the enthusiastic drive to secure the continuity of cultural practices might conversely distort their significance and transmission instead. This dissertation argues that the implementation of cultural preservation, while critical for defining and protecting the identity of a culture, would require a more careful consideration whereby allowances for cultural practices to discontinue, when necessary, should be factored in to ensure the integrity of these practices. Cultural practices should always be allowed to continue, or cease, on their own terms

In American society, it is assumed that a person who identifies as nonreligious does not participate in activities often associated with religion. In my thesis I will argue that this assumption is false. Over the last 30 years the number of Americans who identify as nonreligious has increased by 200 percent. Yet at the same time, there have appeared numerous new “spiritual technologies” that nonreligious people can participate in, without having to engage in an established religious tradition. The podcast Harry Potter and the Sacred Text exemplifies this phenomenon by asking, “what if we read the books we love as if they were sacred texts?” I will argue that the podcast treats the Harry Potter series as a sacred text primarily by appropriating religious practices from Christianity and Judaism into “spiritual technologies.” An exploration of American Protestantism’s influence on American culture will situation the podcast within its general cultural context. Using comparative analysis, this thesis will explore how the podcast turns traditional religious practices into nonreligious spiritual technologies.

This dissertation explores the blurring of labor and leisure through new technologies, specifically how women are transforming the home into a marketing site — both as sellers of lifestyles and as consumers of market produced goods and narratives. I take up three phenomena that emphasize the spontaneous allure and risk of participating in the aspirational leisure-labor that has resulted from the expansion of work. First, I examine the collective fascination with the hunt for the perfect bridal gown in Say Yes to the Dress — currently running its 17th season — and continued memorialization through the wedding photography featured on the blog Style Me Pretty. Second, I turn to several lifestyle blogs that offer designer-grade Do-It-Yourself projects on a budget and Instagram accounts that adhere to what I coin as a “minimalist, homestead aesthetic.” Third, I turn to Pinterest, the virtual “bookmarking tool” that has taken digital media by storm. Each of these sites offer unique representations of domestic spaces and tasks through public, image-based medias and depict another layer of a re-ritualization of domestic labor. I find that even as capital erodes the domestic sphere, there is a new preoccupation with recovering the home as sacred space through rituals.

This thesis is about Bronze age graves in Kronobergs län. My purpose is to examine fourteen confirmed graves from this period. The three question I ask is 1. What action can you attribute from a ritul therory to the buildings of the graves 2. What action can you attribute from a ritual theory to the deposit of osteological material. 3. What actions can you attribute from a ritual theory to the deposit of other material objects. The theory I use in this case is Catherine Bells theory on ritual which states that we should concentrate on different actions and whats these may mean instead by assume that what we observe when it comes to bronze age graves has always something to do with ritual by default. The methodical approach used was to read archeologiacl reports which had examined  bronze age graves in Kronoberg, and collect the data from these regarding construction and deposits. Then in my analyse bring the data from this reports and then apply Bells ritual theory on these findings. The conclusion reached is that the construction of the graves did follow certation norms and rules when it come to the location of the graves, what stones were used and a relations between the different construction part of the graves had a connection. Also that the cremation of the osteological material happened in the vicinity and not in the graves themselves and the bones was scatted around or in a specific place in the graves and in some cases may have had the function as an altar. The deposit of other material objects shows that this might have been personal belongings to individual that was buried and showed there status in life, but also that some of the material that was deposit was actions that belonged to funeral itself.

<p> Drawing on theoretical frameworks from Religious Studies, Anthropology and Sociology, this dissertation poses the question: How is religious meaning constructed in the face of death in contemporary North America, given that commercial establishments, non-denominational funeral chapels, have become the primary context for the performance of death rituals dealing with death, the dead and the bereaved? </p> <p> The dissertation is based on an extended period of ethnographic research at the Marlatt Funeral Home in Dundas, Ontario, a corporately owned non-denominational funeral home which serves a very diverse, but predominantly urban religious population. I concentrate on the funeral professionals as well as clergy and the bereaved in their contribution to the cultural construction and social organization of death in contemporary North America. </p> <p> While there is an extensive body of social science literature on death and funerary practices in non-Western contexts, there is very little systematic academic research on death and funeral practices in contemporary North America, in particular, in Canadian settings. My dissertation furthers the discussion started in studies by Emke (2001) and Small ( 1997) which focus on funeral practices in Newfoundland as well as studies by Bradbury (1999), Davies (2002), Howarth (1996) and Walter (1990, 1994, 1996, 1998) elsewhere in the Anglophone West by focusing on funeral practises in an urban Canadian setting This dissertation demonstrates that funeral directors perform a complicated role as mediators and ritual specialists balancing multiple domains of spirituality, emotion, personal taste, institutionalized religion, ethnicity and commerce. Furthermore, I argue that funeral directors mediate between the living and the dead, between life and death, and between this world and the afterlife, as it is conceived of by their clients. </p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)