RITUAL [FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS]. The term ritual remains difficult to define, which is hardly surprising, since central activities and concepts are always the ones probed most restlessly. The difficulties attending the definition of ritual testify to the fundamental role it is given in religion and social life, as well as to its attractiveness as a focus for current theorizing about religion in general. The definitional difficulties may also suggest the variety of input into the discussion. For these reasons, ritual has been identified in many unexpected places; rarely does an analysis decide something is not ritual. Nevertheless, the study of ritual in numerous settings is driving theory in several disciplines to work through, and past, the symbol-culture model of the 1970s and 1980s—in some cases to engage the contributions and ramifications of postmodernism, in other cases to forge a new science to depict the...