{"product_id":"9780253112736","title":"Yoruba Ritual: Performers, Play, Agency","description":"\u003cp\u003eYoruba peoples of southwestern Nigeria conceive of rituals as journeys --\u003cbr\u003e sometimes actual, sometimes virtual. Performed as a parade or a procession, a\u003cbr\u003e pilgrimage, a masking display, or possession trance, the journey evokes the\u003cbr\u003e reflexive, progressive, transformative experience of ritual participation. Yoruba\u003cbr\u003e Ritual is an original and provocative study of these practices. Using a performance\u003cbr\u003e paradigm, Margaret Thompson Drewal forges a new theoretical and methodological\u003cbr\u003e approach to the study of ritual that is thoroughly grounded in close analysis of the\u003cbr\u003e thoughts and actions of the participants. Challenging traditional notions of ritual\u003cbr\u003e as rigid, stereotypic, and invariant, Drewal reveals ritual to be progressive,\u003cbr\u003e transformative, generative, and reflexive and replete with simultaneity,\u003cbr\u003e multifocality, contingency, indeterminacy, and\u003cbr\u003e intertextuality.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThroughout the book prominence is given to the\u003cbr\u003e intentionality of actors as knowledgeable agents who transform ritual itself through\u003cbr\u003e play and improvisation. Integral to the narrative are interpolations about\u003cbr\u003e performances and their meanings by Kolawole Ositola, a scholar of Yoruba oral\u003cbr\u003e tradition, ritual practitioner, diviner, and master performer. Rich descriptions of\u003cbr\u003e rituals relating to birth, death, reincarnation, divination, and constructions of\u003cbr\u003e gender are rendered all the more vivid by a generous selection of field photos of\u003cbr\u003e actual performances.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Indiana University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47067817509104,"sku":"9780253112736","price":15.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780253112736","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}