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Healing Dramas : Divination and Magic in Modern Puerto Rico / Raquel Romberg.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Austin : University of Texas Press, [2021]Copyright date: ©2009Description: 1 online resource (311 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780292793651
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 133.4/3097295
LOC classification:
  • BF1584.P9 R65 2009
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface. After Eight Years -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction. Healing Dramas -- Chapter One. A Flight Perfected at Death: Mimetic Memories of a Brujo -- Chapter Two. Dreams -- Chapter Three. Drama -- Chapter Four. Spiritual Time -- Chapter Five. The Sentient Body -- Chapter Six. Space -- Epilogue. A Farewell Trabajo -- Notes -- References -- Index
Summary: In this intimate ethnography, Raquel Romberg seeks to illuminate the performative significance of healing rituals and magic works, their embodied nature, and their effectiveness in transforming the states of participants by focusing on the visible, albeit mostly obscure, ways in which healing and magic rituals proceed. The questions posed by Romberg emerge directly from the particular pragmatics of Puerto Rican brujería (witch-healing), shaped by the eclecticism of its rituals, the heterogeneous character of its participants, and the heterodoxy of its moral economy. What, if any, is the role of belief in magic and healing rituals? How do past discourses on possession enter into the performative experience of ritual in the here and now? Where does belief stop, and where do memories of the flesh begin? While these are questions that philosophers and anthropologists of religion ponder, they acquire a different meaning when asked from an ethnographic perspective. Written in an evocative, empathetic style, with theoretical ruminations about performance, the senses, and imagination woven into stories that highlight the drama and humanity of consultations, this book is an important contribution to the cross-cultural understanding of our capacity to experience the transcendental in corporeal ways.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780292793651

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface. After Eight Years -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction. Healing Dramas -- Chapter One. A Flight Perfected at Death: Mimetic Memories of a Brujo -- Chapter Two. Dreams -- Chapter Three. Drama -- Chapter Four. Spiritual Time -- Chapter Five. The Sentient Body -- Chapter Six. Space -- Epilogue. A Farewell Trabajo -- Notes -- References -- Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

In this intimate ethnography, Raquel Romberg seeks to illuminate the performative significance of healing rituals and magic works, their embodied nature, and their effectiveness in transforming the states of participants by focusing on the visible, albeit mostly obscure, ways in which healing and magic rituals proceed. The questions posed by Romberg emerge directly from the particular pragmatics of Puerto Rican brujería (witch-healing), shaped by the eclecticism of its rituals, the heterogeneous character of its participants, and the heterodoxy of its moral economy. What, if any, is the role of belief in magic and healing rituals? How do past discourses on possession enter into the performative experience of ritual in the here and now? Where does belief stop, and where do memories of the flesh begin? While these are questions that philosophers and anthropologists of religion ponder, they acquire a different meaning when asked from an ethnographic perspective. Written in an evocative, empathetic style, with theoretical ruminations about performance, the senses, and imagination woven into stories that highlight the drama and humanity of consultations, this book is an important contribution to the cross-cultural understanding of our capacity to experience the transcendental in corporeal ways.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 26. Apr 2022)