RITUAL STUDIES as a field of inquiry began with a research group established in 1977 by the American Academy of Religion (AAR), the international society of religious studies scholars. A decade later Ronald L. Grimes and Fred W. Clothey cofounded the Journal of Ritual Studies. Ritual studies is a distinct academic field that gives special attention to the performance aspect of the rites themselves (gesture, aesthetics, space, choreography, praxis, meaning) and not just to a rite's social function or cultural context.

Although the term ritual studies is often misapplied as a catchall category for widely divergent research, the field of ritual studies aspires to more than simply cultivating conversation and exchange among scholars from different disciplines. Ritual studies requires a research approach that is truly interdisciplinary. This field of study represents a movement away from more traditional text-oriented conceptions of ritual, and like anthropology and sociology, ritual...