Social performance : symbolic action cultural pragmatics and ritual Introduction : Symbolic action in theory and practice : the cultural pragmatics of symbolic action Jeffrey C. Alexander and Jason L. Mast Cultural pragmatics : social performance between ritual and strategy ; From the depths of despair : performance counterperformance and September 11 Jeffrey C. Alexander The cultural pragmatics of event ness : the Clinton Lewinsky affair Jason L. Mast Social dramas shipwrecks and cockfights : conflict and complicity in social performance Isaac Reed Performing a new nation : the role of the TRC in South Africa Tanya Goodman Performing opposition or how social movements move Ron Eyerman Politics as theatre : an alternative view of the rationalities of power David E. Apter Symbols in action : Willy Brandts kneefall at the Warsaw memorial Valentin Rauer The promise of performance and the problem of order Kay Junge Performance art Bernhard Giesen Performing the sacred : a Durkheimian perspective on the performative turn in the social sciences Bernhard Giesen