New Books in Sociology

Audun Kjus et al., "Adventures in the Play-Ritual Continuum" (Utah State UP, 2024)

Feb 21, 2025

Audun Kjus, a folklorist and cultural historian, discusses his work on the interplay between play and ritual. He reveals how marriage proposals blend tradition with modernity, highlighting both celebration and commitment. Kjus explores how everyday rituals carry deeper societal meanings and reflects on the importance of improvisation in community experiences. The conversation touches on unique cultural practices, like lutefisk in Scandinavian-American culture, and anticipates future research implications in understanding identity through play and ritual.

51:07

Episode guests

Audun Kjus

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Episode notes

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Quick takeaways

The podcast highlights the complex relationship between play and ritual, emphasizing their intertwined roles in cultural expressions and societal norms.

It explores the improvisational nature of personal rituals, demonstrating how humor and creativity enhance the meaningfulness of traditional practices like ash scattering.

Deep dives

The Genesis of Collaborative Research

The development of the book stemmed from a collaborative interest in ritual theory and children's games among a group of folklorists led by Auden Kuss. Initial readings in 2016 inspired a series of seminars and conference panels on the intersections between play and ritual, culminating in a structured project. Their shared engagement in folklore and ethnology paved the way for a comprehensive exploration of these themes. This collaborative spirit highlighted the importance of discussion and partnership in academic work, emphasizing that innovative ideas often arise from collective dialogue.

Intro

2min

Collaborative Insights: Rituals and Play

16min

The Playfulness and Ritual of Marriage Proposals

3min

Rituals of Play and Meaning

9min

Lutefisk: A Cultural Bridge and Adaptation

10min

Playful Histories and Cultural Rituals

5min

Exploring Future Research in Play and Ritual

2min

Exploring Play and Children's Culture

3min

Audun Kjus joins Jana Byars to talk about Adventures in the Play-Ritual Continuum (Utah State Press, 2025), eds. Audun Kjus, Jakob Löfgren, Cliona O’Carroll, Simon Poole & Ida Tolgensbakk. Utah State Press, 2025).

The junctions between play and ritual are many and complex. Play is for fun and joy, but it also demands a total commitment and serious respect for rules. Rituals involve nearly endless varieties of social arrangements and can truly transform people, but they also include improvisation, testing, and pretending. Adventures in the Play-Ritual Continuum explores the connectivity between the playful and the ritualized through a fresh theoretical perspective, highlighting the creative messiness and the cultural paradoxes such intersections allow. The chapters span topics such as hen parties, marriage proposals, ash scatterings, extreme sports races, football fans, computer game festivals, celebrations of fandom, migration heritages, and antiracist protests. While the case studies are selected to show a range of diversity with various mergings of play, game, ritual, ceremony, rite, and ritualizing, the introductory and concluding discussions offer sharpened perspectives on common aspects. Following these excursions through the play-ritual continuum will be enjoyable for readers interested in how people make sense of their own existence and profitable for scholars in folklore, anthropology, religion, pedagogy, cultural studies, and social sciences and humanities more generally.

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