In The Prelude (1805/1850), Wordsworth reimagines time through the ritual calendar and festivals of revolutionary France. The Revolution’s rituals, moreover, complicate the common notion that Wordsworth retreats from politics into poetry. By way of ritual, Wordsworth enters what Walter Benjamin calls now-time or higher time, moments in which the past – via memory – becomes simultaneous with the present. Such now-times allow Wordsworth to juxtapose, on the one hand, his own past calling to a poetic vocation with, on the other hand, the Revolution’s founding vocation to bring liberty. In that juxtaposition, Wordsworth’s own faithfulness to his poetic calling tacitly critiques the Revolution’s infidelity to its origins. The higher time of ritual, then, mediates between Wordsworthian memory and revolutionary history. Wordsworth provides foundations for many Victorian liturgies. His sacralization of material reality, his resistance to the market’s dehumanizing rituals, his imbrication of memory and higher time – each of these undergoes further elaboration as the century unfolds.

Festivals are one of the main contemporary forums in which Indigenous Australian public ceremony is staged, learned, shared and increasingly, revived. In this chapter we review the literature on public ceremony at Indigenous festivals, focusing on Junba at the Mowanjum festival in the Kimberley and Kun-borrk/Manyardi at the Stone Country and Mahbilil festivals in western Arnhem Land/Kakadu. We consider festivals as serving several purposes: Firstly, as a forum for cultural revival, reclamation, and maintenance, supporting language and song revival and reclamation work by local individuals, groups and Indigenous businesses. Secondly, as a forum for education and diplomacy, serving as powerful statements of Indigenous sovereignty, identity, law and diplomacy which educate the broader public. Thirdly, as a site for continuity and innovation of practice. We examine how performers in the Kimberley use Junba to transform society to address inequity and discrimination in wider Australian society, and performers in western Arnhem Land use Kun-borrk/Manyardi at festivals to support interdependence and reciprocity enacted as part of regional ceremonial practices and ideologies of being ‘different together’.

This chapter considers the ritual laws in the latter part of Exodus and throughout much of Leviticus and Numbers, which cover sacrificial activities, consecration of and rules for priests, permitted/forbidden foods, matters of purity, religious festivals, types of sins, the handling and disposal of blood, and vows and donations to the cult of Yahweh.

Jesus was a Jewish preacher and, for some Jews, a Messiah. His first followers lived in Jewish contexts. Only gradually did the differences between Christians and the followers of other religions become visible. Thus, there was a parting of the ways between Christians and Jews, but it was never complete. Jews and Christians always observed and influenced each other. Christians also set themselves apart from the many groups they called pagans. Although they believed in the existence of the gods, they considered them to be demons. They also developed their own rituals and created places where they met, so that Christianity became increasingly recognisable as a religion in its own right.

Chapter 4 gives an account of the role of repertoire and travel in German public theatre and how the Theater an der Ruhr works against national understandings of canonised theatrical repertoires. It examines why German repertoire theatres do not discard plays after a season but reperform them for years, even decades, and what consequences this has for actors and their self-cultivation, as well as for the building of an ethico-aesthetic tradition in an institution. This system goes hand in hand with the closely knit notion of the ensemble in German theatre. This chapter explores these notions through a case study of the transnational repertoire of the Theater an der Ruhr and their long-term collaborations with international theatre-makers from precarious parts of the world, known as the ‘international theaterlandscapes project’. I accompanied the Theater’s journey to Algeria and witnessed first-hand their cooperation with Algerian and Tunisian artists after the ‘Arab spring’, focusing on the way in which theatre develops forms of transnational diplomacy and troubles national narratives of cultural heritage.

This chapter explores the religious practice of characters in the five ‘ideal’ Greek novels, arguing that despite these works’ overall presentation of a world that is in many ways ‘realistic’, their representation of religion diverges from ‘reality’. At one end of the spectrum the behaviour of the rustic couple Daphnis and Chloe is almost hyper-religious, and it is only in Longus’ novel that we find a full range of traditional religious practices, including vows and libations. In the other four many features correspond to behaviour in the ‘real’ world – prayers, offerings, sacrifices, feasts and festivals: but libations are sometimes not poured when they might be expected; rituals associated with marriage or burial are omitted or played down; and, most strikingly, the practice of making a vow to a god at critical moments to secure help or rescue, a practice documented in the ‘real’ world by epigraphy and literature from the archaic period down to at least the third century AD, is wholly absent. Possible reasons for this absence are briefly discussed: is it simply a generally soft-focus and elliptical account of religious behaviour, or is it the avoidance of a device which, if deployed, would risk short-circuiting characters’ tension-creating peril in cliff-hanging situations?

This chapter assesses the cultural and broader symbolic significance of the symposium in Plutarch’s biographical and philosophical works. It begins by situating Plutarch’s references to the symposium in their cultural context, by examining the symposium/convivium as a key social institution in the Roman imperial period. Next, the chapter discusses the symbolic dimension of conviviality in Plutarch’s oeuvre, through characteristic examples from the Lives and Moralia. It underlines that, for Plutarch, the symposium serves as a tool for evaluating moral character, as well as for conducting cross-cultural comparison. In addition, Plutarch’s interest in philosophical dietetics turns consumption patterns and behaviour at symposia into an important point of focus and concern. The last two sections look closely at Plutarch’s two surviving sympotic works, the Banquet of the Seven Sages and Table Talk. It discusses their genre and literary techniques, their relationship to the philosophical tradition of sympotic writing initiated by Plato and Xenophon, and the central role they both assign to philosophical enquiry.

Chapter 18 opens by asking readers to list places in their communities where people go to learn new things. The chapter describes types of places that support public engagement, offers resources for finding specific places or events, and addresses practical considerations. Zoos, libraries, and different types of museums, as well as event-based opportunities such as different types of festivals, are addressed. Suggestions are also given for using one’s own institution. For example, many universities host programs for school-aged children or participate in local events such as cultural celebrations. Practical considerations related to such places and events include timing (once or recurring); registration, rules, and fees; specific space and resources (booth, table, electricity, internet access); audience typical at the venue; and individual and team logistics. The chapter includes resource lists related to these various suggestions. Its Closing Worksheet asks readers to find three places or events where they might take the demonstrations they have developed and to note about each one specifics such as dates and contacts, as well as some of their demonstration’s logistical needs.

The story of how medieval polyphony and song have been approached in more recent times is the subject of our final chapter. We look at how the appearance of modern editions of medieval poetry allowed composers in the first half of the twentieth century, such as Carl Orff and Benjamin Britten, to set medieval song-texts to new music. It would take until after World War II, however, for the music of medieval polyphony and song to reach wide audiences, and we chart the history of the recordings, concerts, and festivals that have brought this music to listeners from 1950 onwards. We examine the approaches of the pioneering ensembles and directors who first performed and recorded this music in the 1950s and 1960s, looking at their influences and attitudes towards the many unknowns regarding its original performance practice. Situating the re-awakening of medieval music in the wider context of the early music revival and the ‘authentic’ (later, ‘historically-informed’) performance movements, we then move on to consider ‘medievalist’ music, especially in film, television, and video games with medieval settings.

The ecumenical synods of the Roman imperial period cannot be understood without understanding their forerunners, the Hellenistic artists’ associations. These were not organised on a pan-Mediterranean scale as the ecumenical synods were. Rather, they were regionally organised, reflecting the fragmented political world of the Hellenistic period. There were four major associations: the Athenian synod, the Isthmian-Nemean synod, mainly active on the Peloponnese and in Boeotia, the Ionian-Hellespontine synod in Asia Minor and the Egyptian synod connected to the Ptolemaic royal court. This chapter discusses their emergence in the third century bc and their involvement in festivals, politics and religion. In many respects their activities were a model for what would come later, for example their preoccupation with securing financial and honorific privileges for their members, their contribution to the organisation of festivals and their relations with political rulers such as Hellenistic kings and Roman generals.

This chapter bridges the gap between the disappearance of the Hellenistic artists’ associations in the first century bc and the emergence of the ecumenical synods at the end of that century. It begins with a discussion of the first attestations of the ecumenical synods. The ecumenical athletes’ association is first attested in a letter by Mark Antony from the 40s or 30s bc. The first clear evidence of the ecumenical synod of artists dates only from the reign of Claudius (AD 41-54), but there are indications that the artists were already banding together on a transregional scale in the 30s bc. Next, this chapter seeks to explain the emergence of the synods by looking at the broader context of Mediterranean integration. It argues that the synods’ emergence was connected to the development of an 'international' festival network, which was in turn made possible by the Roman unification of the Mediterranean. Moreover, it appears that the Roman takeover in the east created the right conditions for the establishment of associations that transcended the polis framework. Especially the province of Asia seems to have provided fertile soil for experimenting with new organisational forms.

This chapter investigates the development of the ecumenical synods in the first century ad, first discussing the xystic synod of athletes and then the thymelic synod of artists. After giving an overview of earlier scholarly opinions on their development, this chapter discusses the evidence from a new perspective. It argues, for instance, that there had been only one athletic synod all along, rather than two athletic synods that eventually merged. As for the thymelic synod of artists, it is clear that it was already fully formed and functional in the first century ad, which opposes the interpretation of some scholars who date its definitive formation about a century later. All in all, the sources indicate that the synods gradually strengthened and expanded their role in the festival world throughout the first century ad and that this evolution gained momentum in the reign of Claudius (AD 41–54).

The conclusion comes back to the main findings of the different chapters. Taken as a whole, this book rehabilitates the ecumenical synods of competitors as prominent actors in the Graeco-Roman society. They shaped its socio-cultural life, reconciled Greek traditions with Roman rule and contributed to the remarkable cultural unification of the Mediterranean in that period.

Nonelites made their own music and were also consumers of music performed by professionals in various settings. These included not only the private parties of the lower classes but public banquets at festivals and recreation in drink shops and the like, as well as the banquets held by voluntary associations to which nonelites belonged. The recreations of the lower classes took on larger public and political significance at festivals and their associated public banquets. Wealthy people and rulers used public entertainments to curry favor with the public and promote a public image of themselves. Rulers did the same. These public entertainments included banquets in theaters and amphitheaters where food and wine were served, sometimes in a fashion that amounted to a kind of mass dinner theater. This custom began with snacks and wine being provided to theatergoers in fifth-century Athens and seems to have mushroomed into something grander by the late Hellenistic era. The style was adopted by certain emperors, and one imperial format was a public banquet held in an arena where musical entertainments were provided and the gladiatorial matches and beast fights and hunts were also accompanied by music.

This chapter argues that the emergence of Krautrock can only be understood against the background of the specific mixture of national and international impulses that shaped the West German musical scene in the late 1960s and early 1970s. What is striking is a high degree of politicisation that resulted, among other things, from the Nazi past and the position of the divided country at the interface of the Cold War. It fuelled a particularly radical student movement and at the same time legitimised a fundamental critique of the culture industry. Combined with the musical impulses from United States and Britain, this gave rise to very unique musical forms that seemed to counter the international mainstream with something entirely new.

The texts and images in this chapter illustrate events involving the Roman imperial court that can be regarded as rituals. These included regular occurrences that took place on a daily or near-daily basis, such as the salutatio, dinners, and religious sacrifices. They also included special occasions like festivals, diplomatic receptions, lavish banquets, and the acclamation of a new emperor. Some of these events occurred in court spaces, and involved a wide cross-section of the court community. These ceremonies functioned as displays of consensus among members of the court community, as their actions demonstrated shared values and expectations. Others did not consistently take place in court spaces, but merit inclusion here because they involved key members of the court community. The sources show how the rules and expectations of these rituals were subject to modification both by emperors and courtiers, who experimented with new types of address, greeting, and physical contact.