Victor Witter Turner

One of the outstanding books in educational studies. --American Educaitonal Studies Association.

The Anthropology of Performance

How is social action related to aesthetics, and anthropology to theatre? What is the meaning of such concepts as "work," "play, "liminal," and "flow"? In this highly influential book, Turner elaborates on ritual and theatre, persona and individual, role-playing and performing, taking examples from American, European, and African societies for a greater understanding of culture and its symbols.

The Human Seriousness of Play

From Ritual to Theatre

Victor Turner

Turner looks beyond his routinized discipline to an anthropology of experience . . . We must admire him for this.-Times Literary Supplement

Collection of 10 articles previously published on various aspects of ritual symbolism among the Ndembu of Zambia; p.83-4; brief mention of C.P. Mountford on Aboriginal colour symbolism; Primarly for use in cultural comparison.

Aspects of Ndembu Ritual

The Forest of Symbols

In this book, Victor Turner is concerned with various kinds of social actions and how they relate to, and come to acquire meaning through, metaphors and paradigms in their actors' minds; how in certain circumstances new forms, new metaphors, new paradigms are generated. To describe and clarify these processes, he ranges widely in history and geography: from ancient society through the medieval period to modern revolutions, and over India, Africa, Europe, China, and Meso-America. Two chapters, which illustrate religious paradigms and political action, explore in detail the confrontation between Henry II and Thomas Becket and between Hidalgo, the Mexican liberator, and his former friends. Other essays deal with long-term religious processes, such as the Christian pilgrimage in Europe and the emergence of anti-caste movements in India. Finally, he directs his attention to other social phenomena such as transitional and marginal groups, hippies, and dissident religious sects, showing that in the very process of dying they give rise to new forms of social structure or revitalized versions of the old order.

Symbolic Action in Human Society

Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors

Structure and Anti-structure

The Ritual Process

A Study of Religious Processes Among the Ndembu of Zambia

The Drums of Affliction

Includes material on ceremonial masks, Western Ashkenazic torah binders, Canela initiation festivals, potlatch ceremonies, Chamula carnivals, early 19th-century Protestant radicals, Penitentes, fiestas, and Juneteenth.

Celebration, Studies in Festivity and Ritual

Considering social drama, ritual, and postmodern consciousness in relation to the idea of performance, Victor Turner explores the interplay of event, spectacle, audience, and culture and offers new insights into the nature of performance.

A Study in Comparative Symbology

Process, Performance, and Pilgrimage

The White Spirit

Chihamba

Edith L. B. Turner

Originally published: 1978, in series: Lectures on the history of religions; new ser., no. 11. With new introd.

Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture

Anthropology as Experience

On the Edge of the Bush

Victor Turner (1920-1983) stands as one of the leading anthropologists of the twentieth century, known especially for his work on the process of ritual. This new collection of Turner's writings gathers seven late pieces that reflect his thoughts on such subjects as pilgrimage, sacrifice, and liminal processes. In them he reveals his debt to Freud, his views on morality, and always his fascination with ritual. Representative of Turner's mature scholarship, these essays will be of interest to scholars in literature, mythology, and religion. With its emphasis on symbolic studies, Blazing the Trail serves as a companion volume to the earlier collection of Turner's essays On the Edge of the Bush (Arizona, 1986), which focused on process and performance. The present collection includes a biographical and critical essay by Edith Turner.

Victor Witter Turner

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