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SLFK 214 - RITUAL AND DEMONOLOGY REVIEW
DIRECTIONS: Same as usual. Please read carefully. Argue your point rather than trying to guess what one of us might say. Support your point by giving examples. Please be thorough and answer all parts of each question.
Please type your answers and please double-space.
Section one - Video and Theory combined (30 points, 40 minutes) Please answer one of the questions below. Don't forget that examples always help. It is important to note that you are being asked to look at theoretical issues and to apply a combination of Turner, Bogatyrev, and the material presented in lecture.
1) In the homemade video showing Christmas in a village in Ukraine, the school children go to an old age home and sing carols. After they sing for a while, the boys throw grain at the grannies seated around the room. One of the grannies makes a motion as if she is washing herself with the grain. Afterwards the children hand out presents to the grannies and leave singing. Interpret in terms of BOTH Turner and Bogatyrev. After you discuss Turner and Bogatyrev elements, please talk about the importance of grain in Russian and Ukrainian culture. Why is grain considered something that can cleanse?
Section two - Picture Identification (20 points, 30 minutes) Please select four of the images below. Tell us what is in the picture and why it is significant to the course. Please try to present a thorough analysis of each image.
Section three - Spirits, saints, and witches: SHORT answer (30 points, 40 minutes; 15 points and 20 minutes each question) Please write short essays on two of the topics below. Answer all parts of the questions you select. At the same time, please be concise. These questions ask you to deal with the first half of the course and to explain it using material covered later in the semester.
1) The first part of Ivanits' book deals with the calendar and the blending of Christian saints with pre-Christian figures and holidays. The second half of her book deals with place spirits, witches, and sorcery. What do place spirits have in common with calendary rituals?
2) Discuss the process by which one belief system replaces another, focusing on inversion, the phenomenon where what is seen as good by one religion is labeled as bad by the religion that supplants it. In your discussion please include material from Veletskaia and her theory about the practice of red death. Please include the material about matriarchy presented in lecture and Gimbutas' theory about goddess worship. You may also include Ivanits and what she tells us about how Orthodox saints partially replaced and partially assimilated pre-Christian gods.
Section four - Humphrey (20 points, 30 minutes) Please write an essay on one of the questions below. As always, answer as completely as you can and support with examples. Here you are being asked to offer a folkloric explanation for phenomena that are explained primarily in economic and political terms.
1) Discuss "rootedness" and the dispossessed as treated by Humphrey in chapter 2. Please give both Humphrey's presentation and a folkloric explanation for the phenomena she observes. Why are people so anxious to be "rooted" and why is being excluded from newly reorganized collective farms such a bad fate?
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