Exam 15: Religion

In 1931, anthropologist Audrey Richards documented the chisungu ritual, performed in Zambia. What is this women-only ritual that centers on menstruation and marriage an example of in anthropology?

The upheaval brought about by the Industrial Revolution led to profound changes in the nature of production and labor as well as the displacement of people as they sought out ways to make a living in the face of these changes. When French sociologist Emile Durkheim observed all of this, what did he call it?

What do anthropologists call a part-time religious practitioner with special abilities to connect individuals with supernatural powers or beings?

The text describes the Muslim saint shrine of Husain Tekri and the rituals that pilgrims to this shrine participate in to venerate this long-deceased Muslim martyr. What is one of the characteristics of this particular example that demonstrates the local adaptation and flexibility of religious practice?

E. E. Evans-Pritchard conducted fieldwork among the Azande and rebuffed Max Weber's earlier assertion that science and modernization would lead to the decline of magic. What was a key element of magic highlighted by Evans-Pritchard's work?

The anthropologist's task when examining religion is to try to capture the vivid inner life, sense of moral order, dynamic public expressions, and interactions with other systems of meaning and power. Based on your own experiences, how does religion inform an individual's inner life, sense of moral order, dynamic public expressions, and interactions with other systems of meaning and power? How does religion inform these aspects on a cultural or social level? What is the underlying purpose of religion within a cultural group or society? What do anthropologists have to offer to the exploration and understanding of world religions?

Whether studying a small temple in a remote village or the most famous Catholic cathedral in Rome, anthropologists try to convey each religion's sense of moral order, dynamic public expressions, and:

Which of the following locations is experiencing a significant increase in encounters between people of various religious faiths?

Karl Marx argued that which of the following played a key role in keeping the working poor from engaging in revolutionary social change that he believed was necessary to improve their situation?

In her work in Korea, anthropologist Lauren Kendall studied forms of ritual. What did her analysis of shamanism and public shamanistic rituals note about these particular practices?

German political philosopher Karl Marx called which of the following "the opiate of the masses"?

The text discusses a tiny courtyard in India where a Muslim healer named Amma meets dozens of patients daily. Amma's healing room crosses seemingly rigid gender boundaries, since she is a female healer in a position of spiritual leadership. What other seemingly rigid boundaries does Amma's healing room cross?

French sociologist Emile Durkheim developed the notion of a fundamental dichotomy between which of the following sets of ideas that has been used by anthropologists in examining religion?

The phenomenal sales of epic works of fiction such as Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien center on magic as a real force in society. In Tolkien's work, the object of interest is a ring that gives the wearer great power. What kind of magic is Tolkien using in his fiction in regard to this particular object?

Hindus venerate the cow (even when they create serious traffic hazards) in order to fully embrace the idea of ahimsa, the practice of nonviolence toward all living things. For a Hindu, then, the cow is much more than an animal with four legs. How is the cow vital in this religious system?

Anthropologists typically examine which of the following in order to understand religion's meaning and significance in the life of a community of people?

Which of the following individuals believed that ideas can be just as powerful as economics in shaping society?

According to Max Weber, the values of self-denial and self-discipline provided the ethic necessary for:

The diversity of local religious expressions complicates anthropologists' efforts to develop:

Some followers of the Voodoo religion in Louisiana use figurines. They pin a person's picture or name to the figure, which represents that person's spirit, in order to bless them. How would an anthropologist most likely categorize this practice?