THE HENRY MYERS LECTURE 2018
will be given by
Prof Simon Coleman, University of Toronto
Laterality: A Sideways Look at Ritual
Thursday 4 October 2018, at 5.30pm (approximately) in the Stevenson Lecture Theatre, Clore Education Centre, the British Museum, Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3DG.
The lecture will be preceded by the RAI’s AGM. All are welcome to the AGM; only RAI Fellows may vote.
Ritual remains a central concern of anthropological studies of religion, and studying ritual has helped to form the discipline as a whole. I ask what happens when we focus on religious ritual in ethnographic contexts where knowledge of, adherence to, and active engagement in set forms seem attenuated at best. My presentation of a sideways look at ritual, where the long-standing trope of liminality is replaced by one of laterality, is not to trivialize the subject: it is to suggest dimensions of ritual that have not yet fully been explored. I focus on ethnographic cases taken from my work on pilgrimage and cathedrals in England, but seek to made broader generalizations.
This event is free, but tickets must be booked. To book tickets please go to https://raiagm2018.eventbrite.co.uk
