Where: CEFRES, Národní 18, conference room, 7th floor.

Organizers: Cécile Guillaume-Pey (CEFRES & FMSH) and Martin Hříbek (FF UK).

Language: English

A workshop organized by CEFRES and the Faculty of Arts of Charles University, with the participation of researchers from the Heidelberg University (Germany), of University College Cork (Ireland), of Wageningen (Netherlands) and of Charles University.

Program

Panel 1 – Discussant: Barbora Spalová (Assistant Professor, Charles University, Prague)

9:45 AM – Max Stille (Ph.D. student, University of Heidelberg) : Bengali Islamic sermons between ritual and non-ritual frames of interpretation

10:20 AM – Alexis Avdeeff (Maître de Conférences, Université de Poitiers) : Chanting destiny: the commercialization of a traditional “divinatory art”

10:55 AM – Break

11:25 AM – Martin Hříbek (Assistant Professor, Charles University): Animating images of Durga: Art, ritual and technologies of enchantment on the streets of Calcutta

Break

Panel 2 – Discussant: Luděk Brož (Institute of Ethnology, The Czech Academy of Sciences)

2 PM – Lidia Guzy (Assistant Professor, University College Cork): From ritual music to stage, museums and politics. Ritual transfers in Western Odisha, India

2:35 PM – Rhadika Borde (Ph.D. Student, Wageningen University): Politicized rituals of worship: Activist involvement in the Dongaria Kondhs’ worship of the Niyamgiri Mountain in Odisha, India

3:10 PM – Break

3:30 PM – Soňa Bendíková (Assistant Professor, Charles University) : The Kota funeral: change of rituals in time

4:05 PM – Cécile Guillaume-Pey (Postdoctoral research fellow, IIAC, Paris): Drinking letters or talking with spirits? Ritual change in a Sora religious movement

Outline

Rituals are not atemporal, infallible devices that always “work” regardless of the performers’ motivations and social contexts in which they are embedded. Rituals are social and historical constructs sometimes considered to be unsatisfying or useless by the participants. They might even “fail” and are then recast, abandoned or replaced. Highlighting the flexibility and polysemy of rituals, recent studies have emphasized the relevance of a diachronic approach that considers the experience of the actors engaged in the performance, how they criticize and reinvent it, and the ways in which they appropriate alternative ritual models.

This workshop aims to investigate the processes of transformation, circulation and transfer of rituals in South Asia. Whether adjusting a “traditional” ritual form in a new social, political or religious context, or integrating new media – writing, audio or video – to diffuse a religious message, the papers will highlight the different ways in which actors reshape their ritual practices and invent new liturgical forms.

Workshop : Ritualization of transgressions and normativities in the European Mediterranean public space

When: Monday 28 February 2022, 10:30–17:00
Where: CEFRES and online (https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87924365313)
Languages: French and English
Convenors: Michèle Baussant (CNRS, CEFRES), Yoann Morvan (CNRS, MESPOLHIS) and Alessandro Testa (Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, associated at CEFRES),

This workshop focuses on the ritualization of transgressions and ‘normativities’ in Euro-Mediterranean public spaces. It aims to adopt an anthropological approach to contemporary European religious phenomena and rituals, both as factors of cultural, symbolic, and spatial sharing and division in Euro-Mediterranean spaces. In particular, the discussions will question the processes of secularism and secularization, of “de-secularization” or “re-enchantment,” or of political and/or social maintaining of the religious. The focus will also encompass the logics of encounters, hybridizations, tensions, and transgressions between different religious actors and practices, both in the case of majority groups and those in minorities, within public spaces that are often pluralistic and pluricultural, in Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe.

Program

10:30–12:00 – Roundtable (in French)
Ritualization of transgressions and forms of normativities in Euro-Mediterranean public spaces: anthropological approaches
With:

• Dionigi Albera (CNRS, IDEMEC)
• Alessandro Testa (Charles University)
• Yoann Morvan (CNRS, MESPOLHIS)
• Ronan Hervouet (CEFRES / University of Bordeaux)
• Viola Teisenhoffer (Charles University / Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest)

Moderators:

• Michèle Baussant (CNRS, CEFRES)
• Jérôme Heurtaux (CEFRES / Paris Dauphine University)

14:00–15:30 – (in English)
Ritualization of transgressions and forms of normativities in public spaces in Central Europe
With:

• Martin Pehal (Charles University)
• Viola Teisenhoffer (Charles University / Eötvös Loránd University)
• Agata Ładykowska (Charles University / Polish Academy of Sciences)

Discussant:

• Dionigi Albera (CNRS, IDEMEC)

16:00–17:00 – (in English)
Presentation of Alessandro Testa’s book,
Rituality and Social (Dis)Order: The Historical Anthropology of Popular Carnival in Europe (Routledge, 2020)
Discussants:

• Alessandro Testa (Charles University)
• Dionigi Albera (CNRS, IDEMEC)
• Martin Pehal (Charles University)

Illustration: Martin Pehal