Where the body ends and symbolism begins
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| Year of publication | 2012 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | In different religious rituals we observe a variety of bodily postures, some ritual-specific. Scholar of religion and sociobiology Walter Burkert pointed out that many of those bodily postures and gestures may have biological origin and function. His notion based on sociobiological paradigm may seem today a bit outdated, but the importance of bodily positions and body manipulations during rituals stays in field of sight in study of religious ritual. This importance is emphasized not only on symbolic level of rituals, but also on physiological level. In current study of ritual, those two levels are usually studied as interconnected. This approach comes from contemporary cognitive psychology, which accentuates the importance of embodiedness and extendedness of the cognitive system. From this point of view, it is necessary to consider ritual bodily postures as crucial elements for understanding how participants perceive and process rituals and also how they create the symbolic language used in rituals and doctrinal systems. |
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