HDS Course Listing

Registrar's Office

HDS 3818

Ritualization

Michael D. Jackson

Description

The focus of this course is not on institutionalized rituals, viewed as framed and identifiable forms of social action, but on ritualization - on the everyday strategies, tactics and routines of 'playful' and 'magical' action whereby people manipulate words, gestures, emotions, bodies, objects and images in an effort not only to control and comprehend their relationship with the world but to change the the way the world appears to them, particularly in times of separation and transition, change or crisis. Like play and fantasy, the process of ritualization is an intrinsic aspect of everyday life, evident in the ways human beings compose stories, furnish and clean their home-spaces, cook and eat meals, read a newspaper, court, joke, argue, mourn, give gifts and converse. Crucial to all these actions is the process of transferring or projecting thoughts and emotions onto non-immediate objects or persons in an attempt to symbolically or vicariously grasp and transform confusing, contradictory or chaotic inner experiences.

Enrollment Limited: Limited to 15 (instructor's permission required)
Open to BTI Students: Yes

Scheduling

Half Course
Expected to be offered: Fall 2010
Course times to be announced.
Location to be announced.

Relationship to Program Requirements

Program Requirement	Area / Category / Art / Designation
MTS Area(s) of Focus	Religion and the Social Sciences
MDiv Distribution Category/ies	Non-Tradition Specific
MDiv Art(s) of Ministry	Religious Education
ThM, pre-2007 MTS, and pre-2005 MDiv Area	Area 3
Language Course Designation(s)	n/a