Sunday in the catholic religiosity – anthropological research of festive ethos

Žižić, Ivica. (2014). Sunday in the catholic religiosity – anthropological research of festive ethos. PhD Thesis. Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu, Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology. [mentor Šantek, Goran Pavel].

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Abstract

The doctoral thesis entitled „Sunday in the catholic religiosity – anthropological research of festive ethos“ provides scientifically based interpretation of the cultural phenomenon of the Christian holy day – Sunday. The intention is to explore how the religious world of the Sunday feast celebrations is formed and experienced. The research documents and interprets religious sources, historical tradition and contemporary social conditions, supporting concepts, ritual life and festive experiences of the first Christian holy day. The approach to the subject is formed progressievly trough religious and historical-cultural, social and ultimately anthropological-cultural framework. The paper is divided into four parts. The first and introductory chapter aims to contextualize the scientific analysis of festive life within general anthropological-cultural discourse starting from four interrelated areas: theory of feasts in theories of religion, feast ethos, the feast in the philosophical and theological discussion and ethnographic and phenomenological aspects of the feast state. The second chapter will aim at the linear reading and interpretation of the cultural history of Sunday. The analysis will include four historical and cultural turning points: Saturday/Sunday in the Hebrew-Christian tradition, Sunday in the early Christian community, Sunday in the historical periods of the West and Sunday in the modern turnoil. The third chapter provides an analytical approach to the cultural situation of the Sunday in the conterporary societies, considering four cultural-historical shifts – ideological, industrial, consumer and secularisation – which have left deep traces in the festive life of the catholic communities and determinated the Sunday in the „modern state“. It is a contextual report that will serve as a direct basis of the ethnological and anthropological interpretation of Sunday. The central fourth chapter of this study, entitled „Living the Sunday – the festive ethos in the catholic religiosity“ consist in the scientific treatment of the Sunday culture starting from the field research in a catholic community, the parish of St. John the Baptist in the town of Split. The scientific report is distributed within four analytical frameworks. The first specifies the methodological approach as well as the field of research. The second one elaborates the concept of Sunday as a holy day from the theoretical and ethnographic perspective, whereas the third analizes the ritual process. Finally, the last unit discusses the festive state. It is about three consecutive and interconnected perspectives by means of which the author intends to provide a comprehensive and realistic account of the festive culture of Sunday. Taking into consideration both emic and etic perspective, appropriate points of view on the subject will be provided, along with the analysis of the performances and patterns of actions, attitudes and experiences among the members of the catholic community. The scientific report on the Sunday feast ethos is designed by means of the combination of the relevant theoretical approaches and the analysis of the material collected in the process of participating observation and open interviews. The conclusion presents the course of the scientific discourse, elaborates the supporting conception of this study and presents the results.

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