Culture and Religion Paper

Students will select a specific culture and discuss their use of magic, witchcraft, and/or religion in a minimum 5 page paper (double spaced, 12pt., Times New Roman). You really have a chance to be creative here so go for it! Students in the past have chosen a wide range of topics including the Church of Satan, playing Pokemon as religious practice, magical rituals associated with sports, peyote rites of the Native American Church, Freemasons, secret societies, wearing makeup as religious practice, Yoga, Voodoo, technology as religion, zombies, vampires, religious dance, cosplay as religion, Hinduism, Islam, Kabbalah and even My Little Pony as religion. Emphasis should be placed on utilizing and applying the course theories and perspectives and a minimum of three scholarly sources should be used. Be very careful to cite your work properly. If students have access to the culture, they are welcome to include an ethnographic component to their paper as long as conducting the research does not pose a risk to you or anyone else (see below). Do not just tell us about the culture; try to analyze their religious practice utilizing the course theories and perspectives. What are the origins of their religious practice and why is it appealing to them? What functions or meanings do these practices have? Are there any rituals or rites that are practiced and how do they operate? All papers should be submitted electronically via Canvas in .doc, .docx, .txt or .pdf format.

You are required to utilize a minimum of 3 outside scholarly anthropological sources in the paper, but be sure to cite everything properly using MLA format and include a works cited page. Do not use Wikipedia or Everyculture.com and if you do, be sure to place all direct quotes in quotation marks or significant points will be deducted. If you plagiarize, you will receive a zero on this paper.

If you select a culture that you have access to, you have the option to conduct ethnographic fieldwork with the culture as long as the research does not pose a risk to you or anyone else. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, you may only conduct ethnographic research with members of your immediate household or via remote methods. You may not conduct ethnographic research with drug dealers, drug users, anyone who is breaking the law, pimps, prostitutes, children, the mentally ill, people with eating disorders, the homeless, axe murderers, gangs, addicts, recovering addicts, or anyone else who is going to get you killed or me fired. If you do decide to conduct ethnographic fieldwork, you must get permission from the people you are working with to conduct the research, it must not pose any threat to yourself or others, and the project must be approved by me. Extreme caution must be taken when working with people you don’t know and I encourage you to take a friend along if you choose to conduct interviews or visit strange places. If you are worried about conducting ethnographic research, simply conduct library research on the culture instead. If you do conduct ethnographic research, be sure to write about your fieldwork experiences. Discuss both what you learned in regards to the culture and to the fieldwork process. What were the challenges you faced? Was the fieldwork successful? Why or why not? Please contact me if you have any questions about this assignment.

Academic Integrity: It is very important that the work that you do during this course is your own! Recycled assignments will also not be accepted. IF YOU COPY OTHER PEOPLE’S WORK AND PRESENT IT AS YOUR OWN, I WILL CATCH YOU AND ACTION WILL BE TAKEN. Plagiarism will not be tolerated! You must cite any materials that you use to write your papers or posts using APA or MLA format. As a general rule, if you use three or more words from another source, put this material in “quotation marks” and follow the sentence with an in-text citation (author’s name, date, pg. #) or (webpage). If you paraphrase from a text, include an in-text citation at the end of the sentence. If you fail to properly cite your work, you will receive a zero for the assignment. If I feel that you have plagiarized, I will report the incident to the University. Also, be sure not to utilize too many quotes in your papers. A paper made up almost exclusively of quotes will receive a zero. Keep quotes to less than 30% of your total papers. Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns about this matter.