Month: April 2020

Troubling the Waters

26 April 2020
bodyhealinghumormusicperformance, play, entertainment

Preface The United Nations declared 1981 as the International Year of Disabled Persons. “Troubling the Waters” is a play I wrote to mark the occasion and enable students to study ritual and performance by exploring a story in the Gospel of John. Since the characters are caricatures of students in the course, I have removed…

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Ritual in a Pandemic World: Coffins

8 April 2020
apocalypsecreativitydeath, mortality, the deaddiseasefunerals, cemeteriesillness

April 5, 2020, the U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams announced, “This is going to be the hardest and the saddest week of most Americans’ lives…. This is going to be our Pearl Harbor moment, our 9/11 moment, only it’s not going to be localized. It’s going to be happening all over the country.” What a…

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Climate Strikes: Rites of Mourning the Future

6 April 2020
essays, articlesfuneral, commemorationritual, festival

by Sarah Pike author of For the Wild: Ritual and Commitment in Radical Eco-Activism Originally published by The Immanent Frame, SSRC On Friday, December 6, 2019, a day of national climate strikes, I heard drums outside my monthly morning meeting at California State University, Chico. Climate strikers from our university and local high schools were…

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