Understanding Religious Ritual

John P. Hoffmann is Professor of Sociology at Brigham Young University. His research interests include the influence of religious practices on behaviours and attitudes. He has also studied western religions in Japan. His most recent books include Japanese Saints and Revisiting Thomas F. O’Dea’s The Mormons.

• Introduction: Improving our Understanding of Religious Ritual 1. Transformations: The Social Construciton of Religious Ritual 2. The Ritual Production of Belonging and Belief: Darwinian Flesh for Durkheimian Bones 3. Experience, Subjectivity and Performance: An Anthropological Approach to Pentecostal Rituals Based on the Body 4. Ritual Texts: Languages and Action in Ritual 5. A Psychological Functionalist Perspective on a Forgiveness Ritual 6. Making It Look Right: Ritual as a Form of Communication 7. Applying Practise-Oriented Approaches to Islamic Purification and Prayer 8. Centered in Time: A Sociological Phenomenology of Religious Rituals 9. Mongolian Livestock Rituals: Appropriations, Adaptations, and Transformations 10. 'Don’t Forget Home': The Importance of Sacred Ritual in Families 11. The Ritual Economy in Modern Malaysia