Mock Ritual in the Modern Era

Mock Ritual in the Modern Era explores the complex interrelations between ritual and mockery, the latter of which is not infrequently the unofficial face of claims to rationality. McGinnis and Smyth consider how the mocking and parodying of ritual often associated with modern rationalism may itself become ritualized, and other ways in which supposedly sham ritual may survive its "outing." This volume traces the evolution of "mock ritual" in various forms throughout the modern era, as found in literary, historical, and anthropological texts as well as encyclopedias, newspapers, and films.

Mock Ritual in the Modern Era places famous eighteenth- and nineteenth-century authors in dialogue with contemporary popular culture, from Diderot, Sterne, and Flaubert to the TV shows Survivor and Judge Judy, and from Voltaire to the Charlie Hebdo tragedy of 2015. Ritualistic and mock ritualistic aspects of comedy and ridicule are considered along with those, notably, of sexuality, medicine, art, education, and justice.

Reginald McGinnis is Professor of French at the University of Arizona. He is the author of Essai sur l'origine de la mystification and coeditor, with Fayçal Falaky, of Modes of Play in Eighteenth-Century France.

John Vignaux Smyth is Professor of English at Portland State University. He is the author of The Habit of Lying.

Introduction
1. Ridicule
2. Mock Ritual in Diderot and d'Alembert's Encyclopedia
3. Mocking Priests in Tristram Shandy and Jacques le fataliste
4. Mock Ritual and the Emergence of Objectivity in Madame Bovary
5. Mock Ritual and Medicine in Flaubert's Dictionary of Received Ideas
6. The Duel as Privatized Mock Ritual
7. Charlie Hebdo: The Ambivalence of Mockery
Bibliography