In various ways, the essays presented in this volume explore the structures and aesthetic possibilities of music, dance and dramatic representation in ritual and theatrical situations in a diversity of ethnographic contexts in Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia. Each essay enters into a discussion of the “logic” of aesthetic processes exploring their social and political and symbolic import. The aim is above all to explore the way artistic and aesthetic practices in performance produce and structure experience.

In various ways, the essays presented in this volume explore the structures and aesthetic possibilities of music, dance and dramatic representation in ritual and theatrical situations in a diversity of ethnographic contexts in Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia. Each essay enters into a discussion of the “logic” of aesthetic processes exploring their social and political and symbolic import. The aim is above all to explore the way artistic and aesthetic practices in performance produce and structure experience.

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements

Introduction: The Aesthetics of Symbolic Construction and Experience
Bruce Kapferer and Angela Hobart

Chapter 1. Making Grown Men Weep
William O. Beeman

Chapter 2. The Buzz of God and the Click of Delight
David Shulman

Chapter 3. Songs of Love, Images of Memory
Saskia Kersenboom

Chapter 4. The Hindu Temple and the Aesthetics of the Imaginary
Rohan Bastin

Chapter 5. Where Divine Horsemen Ride: Trance Dancing in West Africa
Steven M. Friedson

Chapter 6. Sorcery and the Beautiful: A Discourse on the Aesthetics of Ritual
Bruce Kapferer

Chapter 7. Transformation and Aesthetics in Balinese Masked Performances—Rangda and Barong
Angela Hobart

Chapter 8. A Concise Reflection on the Brazilian Carnival
Roberto DaMatta

Chapter 9. Bureaucratic Logic, Bureaucratic Aesthetics: The Opening Event of Holocaust Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Day in Israel
Don Handelman

Chapter 10. Compassion for Animals, Indifference to Humans: Non- and Misperceptions among Circus Audiences in 1970s Britain
Yoram S. Carmeli

Notes on Contributors
Index