METAMORPHOSES OF RITUALS: FROM ARCHAIC WORLD TOWARD POSTMODERN 

International academic conference.

2009 April 17-18 d. Lithuania, Vilnius. 

Ritual belongs in the symbolic domain of human lifeworld;  the symbolic domain provides a complex web of meanings that are in excess of the practical commerce of civilizational products. Nonetheless the excess composes the purposes, the structures and meanings of human relations, their destiny in the cosmos and the destiny of cosmos itself. Rituals are concrete and sensuous ways of articulating such symbolic domain by direct public participation in most diverse ways, from birth ceremonies to rites of death, the bringing up of the morning sun to the sacrifices as means of continuing the cosmic cycles. 

The conference is designed to explore the great variety of ritual practices and to disclose the ways that they articulate the symbolic designs of a given lifeworld. The latter term indicates that different peoples of different cultures, live differently – despite the common fact that they need to provide for daily necessities – and that their rituals explicate and make present the complex of symbolic meanings without which human life would be a process of eating, sleeping, procreating and producing.

We invite proposals that would help all participants to better make sense of human life as it is explicated through rituals. It is to be noted that the conference will welcome presentations from or about different cultures, different times and of diverse categories.  

The Conference is designed to discuss the following questions:

• Rituals of archaic world and ancient cultures
• Rituals of primordial cultures
• Rituals of greate civilizations (Indian, Chinese, etc)
• The role of rituals in diverse religions
• Sacrificial rituals in diverse religions and cultures
• Ritualistic depictions in sacral arts.
• Depiction of rituals in modern and postmodern art
• The quest for ritualistic reenchantment of contemporary secular world
• Psychological, psychopathological and psychoanalytical aspects of rituals
• Political and cultural rituals in consumer society

The conference is organized into sections that focus on different topics, historical periods, theoretical and practical concerns; while the range of problems is extensive, they are synthesized by the quest to understand the ways that rituals reveal the meaning of diverse life worlds. Based on the presented papers at the conference, there is a plan to publish a collection of articles dealing with the theme of rituals. 

The organizational committee of the conference. Head – prof. Algis Mickunas. Members – prof. Tomas Sodeika, doc. dr. Ruta Bruzgiene, dr. Jekaterina Lavrinec, Elena Sakalauskaite, Agnieška Juzefovic, Jolanta Saldukaityte.  

You are kindly invited to submit your proposal with title and a short summary (approximately 1000-1200 characters with breaks) The summaries can be sent to the following address: elena.sakalauskaite@gmail.com (E. Sakalauskaite).

Deadline is 2009 February 20.  

Conference fee – 25  euro.

Working languages of conference: English, Lithuanian. 

Contacts for supplementary information and hotel reservation: Elena Sakalauskaite  mob. +37067888111; e-mail elena.sakalauskaite@gmail.com.