Exam 15: Religion

Which of the following is defined by Victor Turner as a sense of camaraderie that shares a common vision of what constitutes a good life and a commitment to work toward that aim?

Which of the following anthropologists developed the theory of cultural materialism, which argued that material conditions determine patterns of social organization?

Religious revivals have been spreading across various areas of the world such as China. What constitutes religious revivals? Other than China, what is an example of an area in the world that is experiencing religious revival? What is involved in your example of religious revival and why do you think it is occurring? How is the religious revival in your example related to other social systems of power? What do you think are the underlying forces spurring the religious revival, what direction do you think it will take in the future, and what forces do you think will affect the future direction? Do you think religion will eventually die out in the future? Why or why not?

Which of the following practices entails using spells, incantations, words, and actions in order to compel supernatural forces to act in certain ways?

Attention to local religious expressions complicates anthropologists' efforts to create a universal definition of which of the following?

Which of the following statements is true?

In his work with Azande peoples, E. E. Evans-Pritchard found that which of the following individuals are formally taught the knowledge of rituals and medicines and use that knowledge to thwart the work of a witch?

Which of the following anthropologists examined the role of religion in community life in Niger, West Africa, in order to contribute to understanding and respecting others' systems of knowledge?

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?

Anthropologist Marvin Harris developed the theory of cultural materialism, which is built on Karl Marx's analysis of the way in which the material conditions of a society shape its other components. What is the basic premise of Harris's theory of cultural materialism, and how does it relate to religion? How can Harris's theory be applied to explain why cows are sacred in India? What is an example of a religious practice that people engage in within the United States that could be explained using the theory of cultural materialism? Do you think Harris's theory is useful in examining religion and religious practices? Why or why not?

French ethnographer and folklorist Arnold van Gennep (1873-1957) was the first to theorize a category of ritual called "rites of passage." What are rites of passage, and what is an example of a rite of passage in your own cultural experience? How are rites of passage related to rituals and religion? Are there rites of passage in cultural groups that are not tied to religion? Provide an example. How do rites of passage affect the individual and how do they affect the cultural group as a whole?

Victor Turner's final stage of rites of passage that involves the return of the individual to the everyday life of the community is termed:

In order to examine the role of religion in community life in Niger, West Africa, anthropologist Paul Stoller apprenticed with which of the following religious specialists?

Which of the following anthropologists argued that religion and religious symbols are actually produced through complex historical and social developments in which power and meaning are created, contested, and maintained?

Anthropologist Clifford Geertz suggests that religion is essentially a system of ideas surrounding a set of powerful:

Victor Turner was an influential anthropologist who studied various aspects of religion. Turner considered religious pilgrimage to be a unique form of religious ritual. What is a religious pilgrimage? What are three specific examples of religious pilgrimage and what do they entail? What stages of process do the pilgrimage examples you provided entail? What purposes do your examples serve a particular religion in general? What purposes does religious pilgrimage serve for the individual and his or her community?

French sociologist Emile Durkheim defined which of the following as an alienation that individuals experience when faced with physical dislocation and the disruption of their social networks and group values?

Which of the following locations is particularly experiencing increasing encounters between people of various religious faiths and new strategies for cultivating and educating participants?

Catholicism is being rejuvenated in the United States as a result of:

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?