{"id":198379,"date":"2023-05-03T07:15:26","date_gmt":"2023-05-03T11:15:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=198379"},"modified":"2024-11-27T12:30:50","modified_gmt":"2024-11-27T17:30:50","slug":"ritual-superstition-and-other-things-that-make-life-worthwhile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2023\/05\/ritual-superstition-and-other-things-that-make-life-worthwhile\/","title":{"rendered":"Ritual, Superstition, and Other Things that Make Life Worthwhile"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The coronation of a European monarch. The decorated caps that enliven every commencement ceremony. The commencement ceremony itself. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/us\/ncaa-division-i\/news\/dan-hurley-underwear-uconn-coach-superstition\/f3uzmf8dbxtn2p6octh9fppl\">A lucky pair of underwear.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>What these all have in common is that they&#8217;re examples of ritual behavior &#8211; some on a grand scale, some on a personal scale, but all of them contributing to the way people navigate and make sense of the world.<\/p>\n<p>Dimitris Xygalatas is an anthropologist and cognitive scientist who studies some of the more distinctive aspects of what it means to be human: ritual, music, sports fandom, and much more. An associated professor in anthropology and psychological sciences at UConn, he&#8217;s also the head of the Experimental Anthropology Lab and a sought-after media expert on everything from presidential inaugurations to extreme body modification. His most recent book, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hachettebookgroup.com\/titles\/dimitris-xygalatas\/ritual\/9780316462402\/\">&#8220;Ritual: How Seemingly Senseless Acts Make Life Worth Living,&#8221;<\/a> is available wherever books are found.<\/p>\n<p>In this episode of UConn 360, he talks about his work, about how ritual and superstition offer important insights into human behavior and society, and whether he&#8217;s got a few rituals of his own.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/uconn360.podbean.com\/e\/how-seemingly-senseless-acts-make-life-worthwhile\/?token=5dce531bedcc8de16d4540aa6b09056c\">Listen to episode 108 of UConn 360.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A conversation with UConn Professor Dimitris Xygalatas <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":198380,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2465,2226,2141,2373,2235],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[1902],"class_list":["post-198379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anthropology","category-clas","category-podcast","category-psychological-sciences","category-today-homepage","series-heard-here-uconn-360"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-08 11:08:41","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198379"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":222034,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198379\/revisions\/222034"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/198380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198379"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=198379"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=198379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}