The Crutch of Ritual: Social Control in the Modern American Capital Punishment System
Description:
Contemporary American capital punishment contains many processual elements, such as the prisoner's last meal and the cleansing of his body immediately before death, that serve no concrete, practical purpose but share a nature with ritual practices. In this project, I utilize a hermeneutic phenomenological lens to identify and list these ritual elements. I also use concepts drawn from the structural functionalist tradition to both analyze the specific purposes the elements serve within individua…
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Date:
August 2019
Creator:
Pellegrino, Alexandra Clarke