Join us for this UBC Religion for Lunch talk with Anthropology PhD candidate Byron Arthur Clark!
The Making of the Maypole: Sacred Masculinity and Ritual Preparation at Glastonbury’s Beltane Festival
Hybrid Event
When and Where
Wednesday, Nov. 20, 12:00PM – 1:00PM
Buchanan Block C, Room 203, 1866 Main Mall
Click here to Register for Zoom Webinar
Abstract
The ritual preparation of the Maypole for Glastonbury’s Beltane festival is a complex process, involving four separate rituals spread over seven weeks prior to the day itself. In this presentation I examine this process in detail and describe the nature of Glastonbury’s Green Men, an all-male ritual group tasked with this sacred responsibility. The Green Men embody a specific vision of sacred masculinity, within a religion, Neo-Paganism, in which it is the divine feminine which is more typically prioritized. This presentation examines how concepts of gender and community are both challenged and reconciled in the preparation for the Beltane rites at Glastonbury.
About Byron Arthur Clark
Byron is a PhD candidate in Anthropology at UBC. His prior education has been in philosophy, intellectual history and anthropology at the Universities of Stellenbosch, Amsterdam and Oxford. His research interests include Neo-Paganism, the naturist/nudist movement and semiotic anthropology. Byron is originally from Cape Town, South Africa, and also has a keen interest in publishing, theatre, and
