Description: She shows that ritual is a way of creating the present by mobilizing the stories of the past for contemporary purposes.
Review Quotes:
"This monograph would be best for people grounded in anthropology, religion, and English history, but offers many insights to nonexperts. It would be a good addition to any university library."--Religion and Gender
"Hausner's is an affectionate and sympathetic portrayal of the Crossbones ritualists, and it is excellent to see this tradition receiving scholarly attention"--Reading Religion
"In one sense this is a book about the role of sex work in English society, past and present. At the same time it is a profound meditation on how such work sheds light on changing relations between community and capital, on how ritual is a source of both repetition and creativity in contemporary England, and on how anthropology and history can talk to each other in productive and deeply nuanced ways. . . . I read it in one sitting, which was an unusual pleasure."--Simon Coleman, University of Toronto