Ritual drama extends participantsā subjectivity through self-inflicted suffering.
Evidence
Ritual drama, such as the Passion of Christ or the Martyrdom of Hussain, has an added dimension. Participants here enact, identify with, undergo, the predetermined agony of ļ¬gures in Christian and Islamic narratives. In subjecting themselves to suffering (in some cases to self-inļ¬icted wounds) they seek in part to extend themselves as subjects. ā Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 378
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- ADDENDUM: Extends the sacrifice essay: ritual reenactment of sacred agony is another mode of intentional suffering that stabilizes identity, paralleling sacrificial self-offering.
- DEFINE: Clarifies what distinguishes ritual drama from ordinary theatrical performance: the extension of self through undergoing predetermined sacred suffering.
- SEED: Article angle: how self-inflicted suffering as identity-formation differs between ritual-devotional practice (Ashura, Passion plays) and modern secular masochistic/self-harm framings, and what that contrast reveals about secular-modern subjectivity.