Fire in the Placa

Fire in the PlacaCatalan Festival Politics After FrancoDorothy NoyesWinner of the 2005 Fellows of the American Folklore Society Book PrizeAn excellent model of how to approach the analysis of principal communities, in Europe and elsewhere, that are struggling to overcome internal conflicts and contradictions and find acceptable ways of participating in a wider, increasingly globalized world.--South European Society and PoliticsThis impressive contribution to the anthropology of Europe is the first full-length study in English of the Patum, a Corpus Christi fire festival unique to the town of Berga, in the foothills of the Catalan Pyrenees (Spain). It also marks the emergence of an important scholar. Noyes combines that rarity--well-crafted and accessible prose--with a theoretical architecture that borrows from hermeneutics and the anthropology of power. . . . Highly recommended.--ChoiceThis book stands above other festival studies in its ability not only to convey information but also, of equal importance, to recreate the emotional texture of events for performers and audience alike. . . . This book is a must.--Journal of American FolkloreSelected by Choice magazine as an Outstanding Academic TitleFire in the Plaça is the first full-length study in English of the Patum, a Corpus Christi fire festival unique to Berga, Catalonia, Spain, celebrated annually since the seventeenth century. Participants in the festival are transformed through drink, sleep deprivation, crowding, constant motion, and the smoke and sparks of close-range firecrackers into passionate members of a precarious body politic. Combining richly layered symbolism with intense bodily expression, the Patum has long served as a grassroots equivalent of grand social theory; it moves from a representation of social divisions to a forcible communion among them.Dorothy Noyes is Associate Professor of Folklore and English at The Ohio State University and author of Uses of Tradition: Arts