TASK DEFINITION: In this task you will be given a text passage from a trivia quiz. You should choose the category this question belongs to from these categories: History, Science, Social Science, Fine Arts, Literature. You can only choose one category, so if in doubt, please choose the closest match.
PROBLEM: One poem by this author claims that "there's nothing sentimental about the technique of writing," which can be mastered by "any young man with a mind bursting to get out." This author argued that "The United States without self- seeking has given more of material help to Europe and to the world than have all other nations of the world put together in the entire history of mankind" in the chapter "Jacataqua," from a book which contains short biographies of people like Eric the Red, Walter Raleigh, and Daniel Boone. Another book by him begins with the section "The Delineaments of the Giants," which mentions "blank faces of the houses and cylindrical trees" to reinforce that there are "no ideas but in things," and describes a place that  "lies in the valley under the Passaic Falls, its spent waters forming the outline of his back." For 10 points, name this author of In the American Grain and an epic about his New Jersey hometown, Paterson.

SOLUTION: Literature

PROBLEM: Sections of this work discuss early Roman law and the Germanic wadium, while it begins with a quote from the Havamal, a portion of the Edda. This work extends the author's first work, a collaboration in which he analyzed analogous ideas in Hinduism and Judaism. Marilyn Strathern critiqued this book from a gender perspective, while Sahlins' article on the "The Spirit of [It]", claimed that its author may have misunderstood an idea called the hau, in which the souls of the people involved in the title ritual become intermingled. The author views the title concept as multivalentthat is, a situation where a single action stands for all of society, called a total prestation. Drawing from Malinowski's study of the kula ring and the institution of the potlatch, for 10 points, identify this sociological work about the titular exchange by Marcel Mauss.

SOLUTION: Social Science

PROBLEM: This dynasty continued a system in which one month out of every five was given to military service by those who lived within 500 li of the capital; that was the Fubing system. A Buddhist savings bank stocked by donations was liquidated during this dynasty and was called the "Inexhaustible Treasury."  Governors known as "jiedushi" first sprang up during this period under emperor (*) Xuanzong. A major insurrection during this dynasty ended after Shi Chaoyi killed himself. This dynasty was  interrupted by the second Zhou dynasty when Ruizong announced that his mother, Wu Zetian, would be  emperor. For 10 points, name this Chinese dynasty that lasted from 618 until 907 and faced the An  Lushan rebellion.

SOLUTION:
History