RELIGST 2EE3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Collective Effervescence, Limen, Liminality

• School: McMaster University
• Department: Religious Studies
• Course: RELIGST 2EE3
• Professor: Eileen Schuller

Document Summary

Lecture 4 liminality, communitas and imaged communities. Durkheim elementary forms of the religious life. Totem animal, totem as symbol, clan all perceived to share common essence. It is this common essence that is worshipped, symbolized in the form of the deity or totem. Shared understandings, ways of viewing world within a collectivity or social group. People will do things in crowds they might hesitate to do as individuals. Serazio points out, collective effervescence can exclude people who are not part of the social group. Explains vandalism and violence after sports events. Violence towards others i. e. jews in nazi germany. Durkheim"s collective effervescence = victor turner"s communitas. Intense positive emotions, direct egalitarian connections among people who feel closely bonded. Absence of normal rules of social life, hierarchy. Turner structure = organized arrangement of social institutions and roles. Communitas powerful emotional bonds: also needed to keep society cohesive, mostly pleasurable.