Awkward Rituals

"The white Protestants who shaped US middle-class culture in the early nineteenth century saw themselves as enlightened reformers. . . . [but] Logan shows these people could also be confused, ambivalent, embarrassed characters, half-alienated from the very social roles they assigned to themselves, uncomfortable in the costumes they put on and the gestures they performed. Despite their fantasies of rapture, much of their experience was boring. They went through the motions dissociating and cringing. Logan is a smart, skilled analyst of [their] awkwardness." * American Religion *
"A book that says, in a lively and stylish way, that many of the things we think we know about ritual are wrong. Logan argues that there is no ritualized body or regime of ritual discipline. Nor does ritual resemble practice or disciplined action, as others have theorized those concepts. Instead, Logan offers a new frame: ritual is awkward. It is more like theater, especially when the acting is bad. . . . Awkward Rituals is a useful and challenging book for the study of religion broadly construed." * Method and Theory in the Study of Religion *
"Awkward Rituals challenges readers to rethink their assumptions about rituals as sincere, productive, and cohesive. . . . For those of us concerned with objects, bodies, spaces, and sensations, this book is an example of how we can generatively engage with the ambiguity and contradictions of the material world." * Material Religion *
"A helpful reminder that rituals did not resolve all contradictions, all tensions in expressions of solidarity or sympathy-and did not necessarily feel normal or comfortable." * Journal of the Early Republic *
"Logan's strikingly creative reimagining of power, publics, and governance brilliantly illustrates how corporate bodies of all sorts drew upon religiously-scented ritual performances of authority in choreographing the uncomfortable, sometimes embarrassing, and always awkward dance of civility in the early Republic. This is a fascinating and exciting recasting of interpretive categories familiar to historians of nineteenth-century religion, a bold intervention yielding important lessons not just about American religious history but equally about the study of religion." -- John Corrigan, Florida State University
"How do you behave as if you are in authority when you have done away with kings? In her truly brilliant study of "sovereign rituals" in America from 1790 to 1850, Dana W. Logan has found the answer: awkwardly. Initiating a brother Mason, reading the minutes, raising the flag, and ordering the housework highlight some of the graceless quotidian performances that created the sensation of coherent authority even in its absence. Awkward Rituals is not only fun to read, it is essential across the disciplines." -- Joseph Roach, Yale University