We will hold a journal club on Friday March 11th at 6pm. We will discuss the bear killing ritual of the Ainu (indigenous people of northern Japan and Kamchatka), which is an interesting example of debate regarding what is the aim of ethnology, what is a ritual, and what is a bear.

For those who would want an introduction, I suggest reading at least the first 3 pages of Kimura's "Bearing the bare facts of ritual".

And if you want to go deeper, you can read the famous paper it critiques, JZ Smith's "The bare facts of ritual" .

Presentation: Download here