Prey into Hunter : The Politics of Religious Experience - Maurice  Bloch

Prey into Hunter

The Politics of Religious Experience

By: Maurice Bloch

Paperback | 16 December 1991

At a Glance

Paperback


$38.95

or 4 interest-free payments of $9.74 with

 or 

Aims to ship in 7 to 10 business days

Maurice Bloch has for many years been developing an original and influential theory of ritual. In this book he synthesizes a radical theory of religion. Rituals in a great many societies deny the transience of life and of human institutions. Bloch argues that they enact this denial by symbolically sacrificing the participants themselves, so allowing them to participate in the immortality of a transcendent entity. Such sacrifices are achieved through acts of symbolic violence, ranging from bodily mutilations to the killing of animals. The theme is developed with reference to rituals of many types, from a variety of ethnographic sources, and Bloch shows that even exogamous marriage rituals can be reinterpreted in the light of this thesis. He concludes by considering the indirect relation of symbolic and ritual violence to political violence.
Industry Reviews
"Bloch presents a strong theory of human behaviour based on the discovery of a 'minimum irreducible structure which is common to many ritual and other religious phenomena.'...I appreciate his robust theoretical reason..." Robert Hamerton-Kelly, Method and Theory in the Study of Religion

More in Social & Cultural Anthropology, Ethnography

Homo Deus : A Brief History of Tomorrow - Yuval Noah Harari

RRP $24.99

$23.75

The Dawn of Everything : A New History of Humanity - David Graeber
The Way We Are : Lessons from a lifetime of listening - Hugh Mackay
Us Mob Walawurru - David Spillman

$17.99

Sapiens : A Brief History of Humankind - Yuval Noah Harari

RRP $27.99

$19.95

29%
OFF
Three Women - Lisa Taddeo

Paperback

RRP $22.99

$21.90

Bullshit Jobs : A Theory - David Graeber

RRP $24.99

$23.75

A Training School for Elephants - Sophy Roberts