Joel Mort
Biographic Data
| ID | 160417 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Joel Mort |
| GIVEN NAMES | Joel |
| FAMILY NAME | Mort |
| SIGNATURE | MORT J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of South Africa |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7451-2434 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 8 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 4 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 8 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
A Missed Opportunity. A review on Dimitris Xygalatas, Ritual
This review recognizes that Ritual: How Seemingly Senseless Acts Make Life Worth Living has many good qualities and relates a story of scholarship that, according to the assertions of the author, heralds a brave new world of interdisciplinary examination of research objects heretofore the traditional and exclusive province of anthropology, comparative religion, and the humanities in general. But despite the seemingly broad sense of acceptance thi…
Conventional Wisdom, Potential Risk-Assessment and Governance
Rethinking Conventional Wisdom
Adding mist to the fog surrounding collective rituals
Are Motor Collective Rituals as Rigid as They Seem? A Test Case of a Zulu Wedding Dance
Rituals are common in religion, sports, culture and specific life-stages (childhood, parenthood, etc.), raising the question of why being engaged in such activity, what could be its benefit, and how rigid they are. Here we analyzed 19 episodes of a Zulu Umsindo dance performed by 10 women. This ritual comprised a common act, performed in all dance episodes of all women, personal acts performed consistently by one woman but not by the others, and …
Considering the Rationality of Ritual Behavior
Engagement in religious ritual acts is, from a scientific point of view, a surprising feature of human behavior given the inherent commitment to counterintuitive worlds, including, generally invisible entities such as superhuman agents. Why people engage in such behaviors has preoccupied many scholars in the history of the study of religion (including scholars from within anthropology, psychology, sociology, and numerous other disciplines). These…
Sexism vs. Superhuman Agency in the Theravada Buddhist Ritual System
There are currently no fully ordained nuns in the Theravada Buddhist system. The doctrinal reason is because ordination ritual guidelines require the presence of senior nuns (of which, due to the dissolution of the nun orders, there are none) at a female's ordination. A more critical reason offered by feminists is that sexism (textual, traditional, and institutional) maintains the status quo. We argue that the Ritual Form Hypothesis of McCauley a…
On the Epistemological Magic of Ethnographic Analysis
Analyses of religious behavior by cultural (i.e., hermeneutic) scholars of religion are impoverished because the intuitive interpretive method employed in fieldwork analysis fails to fill an explanatory gap in religious studies because of (1) the reliance upon informant (ethnographic) data that itself requires explanation, and because of (2) the rejection of relevant scientific explanatory models required to explain that data. We argue that field…
Are Motor Collective Rituals as Rigid as They Seem? A Test Case of a Zulu Wedding Dance
Rituals are common in religion, sports, culture and specific life-stages (childhood, parenthood, etc.), raising the question of why being engaged in such activity, what could be its benefit, and how rigid they are. Here we analyzed 19 episodes of a Zulu Umsindo dance performed by 10 women. This ritual comprised a common act, performed in all dance episodes of all women, personal acts performed consistently by one woman but not by the others, and …
Sexism vs. Superhuman Agency in the Theravada Buddhist Ritual System
There are currently no fully ordained nuns in the Theravada Buddhist system. The doctrinal reason is because ordination ritual guidelines require the presence of senior nuns (of which, due to the dissolution of the nun orders, there are none) at a female's ordination. A more critical reason offered by feminists is that sexism (textual, traditional, and institutional) maintains the status quo. We argue that the Ritual Form Hypothesis of McCauley a…
On the Epistemological Magic of Ethnographic Analysis
Analyses of religious behavior by cultural (i.e., hermeneutic) scholars of religion are impoverished because the intuitive interpretive method employed in fieldwork analysis fails to fill an explanatory gap in religious studies because of (1) the reliance upon informant (ethnographic) data that itself requires explanation, and because of (2) the rejection of relevant scientific explanatory models required to explain that data. We argue that field…
Sexism vs. Superhuman Agency in the Theravada Buddhist Ritual System
There are currently no fully ordained nuns in the Theravada Buddhist system. The doctrinal reason is because ordination ritual guidelines require the presence of senior nuns (of which, due to the dissolution of the nun orders, there are none) at a female's ordination. A more critical reason offered by feminists is that sexism (textual, traditional, and institutional) maintains the status quo. We argue that the Ritual Form Hypothesis of McCauley a…
Considering the Rationality of Ritual Behavior
Engagement in religious ritual acts is, from a scientific point of view, a surprising feature of human behavior given the inherent commitment to counterintuitive worlds, including, generally invisible entities such as superhuman agents. Why people engage in such behaviors has preoccupied many scholars in the history of the study of religion (including scholars from within anthropology, psychology, sociology, and numerous other disciplines). These…
Adding mist to the fog surrounding collective rituals
Are Motor Collective Rituals as Rigid as They Seem? A Test Case of a Zulu Wedding Dance
Rituals are common in religion, sports, culture and specific life-stages (childhood, parenthood, etc.), raising the question of why being engaged in such activity, what could be its benefit, and how rigid they are. Here we analyzed 19 episodes of a Zulu Umsindo dance performed by 10 women. This ritual comprised a common act, performed in all dance episodes of all women, personal acts performed consistently by one woman but not by the others, and …
Rethinking Conventional Wisdom
Conventional Wisdom, Potential Risk-Assessment and Governance
A Missed Opportunity. A review on Dimitris Xygalatas, Ritual
This review recognizes that Ritual: How Seemingly Senseless Acts Make Life Worth Living has many good qualities and relates a story of scholarship that, according to the assertions of the author, heralds a brave new world of interdisciplinary examination of research objects heretofore the traditional and exclusive province of anthropology, comparative religion, and the humanities in general. But despite the seemingly broad sense of acceptance thi…
Philosophy (6 works) · Cultural Differences and Values (5 works) · Epistemology (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · Political science (5 works) · Psychology (5 works) · Sociology (5 works) · Law (4 works) · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation (3 works)