"Dance as religious studies" reveals resources for the "art of liturgical dance" in terms of both performance and scholarly interpretation. This collection of methodological essays has been arranged to suggest the wide spectrum and the underlying unity of these diverse and varied approaches to understanding dance as religious studies. Part I concentrates on the relationship between liturgical dance and the scriptural traditions of Judaism and Christianity. Part II indicates the feminist possibilities for liturgical and modern dance. Part III presents a spectrum of the contemporary theory and practice of liturgical dance. The book concludes with a bibliographic survey of sources and resources available to both liturgical dancers and students of dance as religious studies.

'Religious Dances' is an account of the origins and history of religious dances and their significance in the Christian church. The author attempts to assess the role which religious dancing has played in the history of medicine and the healing of sickness, and points to disease in cereal plants as one probable cause of dancing epidemics. He pays particular attention to the dancing epidemics of the Middle Ages and he believes that the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin had its origins in one of these epidemics. Heavily illustrated, and packed with dates, facts, and quotations, Religious Dances is a standard work on its subject.

Ecumenical in character, this comprehensive and authoritative dictionary is the achievement of scholars of international standing--Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Baptists, Presbyterians, Quakers, Methodists, Lutherans, and others....The articles are nondogmatic and scholarly....The main emphasis is thematic--the entries represent types, schools, and subjects. Articles that refer to non-Christian religions...are included insofar as they have influenced Christianity. The unifying theme of the dictionary is that it seeks to illumine ways in which women and men have responded to God in prayer and living...

Discos, clubs and raves have been focal points for the development of new and distinctive musical and cultural practices over the past four decades. This volume presents the rich array of scholarship that has sprung up in response. Cutting-edge perspectives from a broad range of academic disciplines reveal the complex questions provoked by this musical tradition. Issues considered include aesthetics; agency; 'the body' in dance, movement, and space; composition; identity (including gender, sexuality, race, and other constructs); musical design; place; pleasure; policing and moral panics; production techniques such as sampling; spirituality and religion; sub-cultural affiliations and distinctions; and technology. The essays are contributed by an international group of scholars and cover a geographically and culturally diverse array of musical scenes.

Could something as simple and seemingly natural as falling into step have marked us for evolutionary success? In Keeping Together in Time one of the most widely read and respected historians in America pursues the possibility that coordinated rhythmic movement--and the shared feelings it evokes--has been a powerful force in holding human groups together.As he has done for historical phenomena as diverse as warfare, plague, and the pursuit of power, William H. McNeill brings a dazzling breadth and depth of knowledge to his study of dance and drill in human history. From the records of distant and ancient peoples to the latest findings of the life sciences, he discovers evidence that rhythmic movement has played a profound role in creating and sustaining human communities. The behavior of chimpanzees, festival village dances, the close-order drill of early modern Europe, the ecstatic dance-trances of shamans and dervishes, the goose-stepping Nazi formations, the morning exercises of factory workers in Japan--all these and many more figure in the bold picture McNeill draws. A sense of community is the key, and shared movement, whether dance or military drill, is its mainspring. McNeill focuses on the visceral and emotional sensations such movement arouses, particularly the euphoric fellow-feeling he calls "muscular bonding." These sensations, he suggests, endow groups with a capacity for cooperation, which in turn improves their chance of survival. A tour de force of imagination and scholarship, Keeping Together in Time reveals the muscular, rhythmic dimension of human solidarity. Its lessons will serve us well as we contemplate the future of the human community and of our various local communities.

Nationalistic meccas, shrines to popular culture, and sacred traditions for the world's religions from Animism to Zoroastrianism are all examined in two accessible and comprehensive volumes. Pilgrimage is a comprehensive compendium of the basic facts on Pilgrimage from ancient times to the 21st century. Illustrated with maps and photographs that enrich the reader's journey, this authoritative volume explores sites, people, activities, rites, terminology, and other matters related to pilgrimage such as economics, tourism, and disease. Encompassing all major and minor world religions, from ancient cults to modern faiths, this work covers both religious and secular pilgrimage sites. Compiled by experts who have authored numerous books on pilgrimage and are pilgrims in their own right, the entries will appeal to students, scholars, and general readers.

Taking a fresh look at the interconnections between medieval images, texts, theater, and practices of viewing, reading and listening, this explicitly interdisciplinary volume explores various manifestations of performance and meanings of performativity in the Middle Ages. The contributors - from their various perspectives as scholars of art history, religion, history, literary studies, theater studies, music and dance - combine their resources to reassess the complexity of expressions and definitions of medieval performance in a variety of different media. Among the topics considered are interconnections between ritual and theater; dynamics of performative readings of illuminated manuscripts, buildings and sculptures; linguistic performances of identity; performative models of medieval spirituality; social and political spectacles encoded in ceremonies; junctures between spatial configurations of the medieval stage and mnemonic practices used for meditation; performances of late medieval music that raise questions about the issues of historicity, authenticity, and historical correctness in performance; and tensions inherent in the very notion of a medieval dance performance.