An Ethnological Study on Music and Rituals as a Key Expression of Modern Beliefs in European Culture

This book explores modern European religious and non-religious rituals and their main features by focusing on music as a key element required for the full expression of beliefs. It specifically examines the relationship between religious, non-religious, pagan, cultural, celebratory, and traditional rituals. In doing so, this text focuses on the extent to which the rituals overlap, replace, or feed religious or pseudo-religious beliefs to create alternative beliefs (individual or collective) that systematically ignore any religion. The book further analyses the relationship between daily habits, holidays, sports, politics, culture, and other pagan rituals as forms that represent social feelings by identifying, enjoying, or impersonating emotions; and transversally, it explores how music facilitates and fosters those emotions. The volume also investigates how rituals coexist and mutually influence each other through a representation of religious and non-religious rituals, and how music plays a central role in that phenomenology.

The author argues that music is a key part of various types of rituals (e.g. rites of passage), and that music supports and enriches the meaning of the ritual, to ultimately strengthen the bond of communication with the individual and the group. This monograph appeals to students and researchers working in religious studies and in music theory.

Burgos is a Full Professor of Technologies for Education & Communication, and the Vice-rector for International Research, at Universidad Internacional de La Rioja (UNIR); he also works as Director of the Research Institute for Innovation & Technology in Education and holds a UNESCO Chair on eLearning. He is also a Full Professor at An-Najah National University (Palestine), an Adjunct Professor at Universidad Nacional de Colombia (UNAL, Colombia), an Extraordinary Professor at North-West University (South-Africa) and a Visiting Professor at Coventry University (United Kingdom). He works as a consultant for United Nations (UNECE), European Commission & Parliament, and Russian Academy of Science. He holds 12 doctorates, including Theology, Anthropology and Computer Science.