The Study of Culture
Culture is a set of human behaviors and beliefs, including those that are not verbal (such as gestures), along with the materials used in these behaviors. Among these are language, ideas, religion, music, customs, values, art, and laws. In addition, it includes the physical environment of a society such as landforms, water, and climate. Culture is not innate; it is acquired by learning through experience, especially from one’s parents and grandparents, but also through one’s surroundings. One’s culture influences every thought, action and decision, from everyday attitudes and assumptions to racial hierarchies and magical beliefs.
There are many theories about the origin of culture. The 19th-century classical evolutionists (such as Edward Burnett Tylor and Lewis H. Morgan) held that the human mind is a predetermined pattern, and that as the human species developed, it developed cultures everywhere along similar lines. Others, known as “diffusionists”–including Fritz Graebner and Elliot Smith–believed that cultures develop in accordance with the laws of geographical diffusion, and that any trait developed once in a culture will spread to other cultures as it is adopted and learned.
In more recent times, scholars have tended to avoid such grand theories, and have sought to understand culture on a more local level. This has led to the growth of a variety of subfields within cultural history, such as ethnomusicology, historical sociology, and the history of science. Many of these fields are in constant contact, and even cross-disciplinary studies are common. The resulting works often reflect the influence of each discipline upon the other, such as the use of psychoanalysis in the writings of historians or the influence of the Renaissance era on the paintings of Salvador Dali.
It is a common belief that a culture can be defined as a community of people with similar beliefs, customs and art, as well as language, music, and other social activities. However, this is not necessarily true, as it may depend on a variety of factors such as geography, genetics, and whether a particular culture is isolated. For example, it is much more likely that a culture in a remote location will develop differently from a highly-developed culture in an urban setting.
The study of culture is a complex and interdisciplinary endeavor, and its implications are far-reaching. It is a field that requires a great deal of critical thinking and analysis, in order to arrive at valid conclusions. Increasingly, researchers in other disciplines are crossing disciplinary boundaries to work together on issues in cultural history, as illustrated by the growing number of works that employ sociological, postcolonialist, and feminist methodologies. In this respect, cultural history is no exception to the general collapse of disciplinary boundaries that characterizes contemporary scholarship in all areas of the humanities and social sciences.
Culture is a set of human behaviors and beliefs, including those that are not verbal (such as gestures), along with the materials used in these behaviors. Among these are language, ideas, religion, music, customs, values, art, and laws. In addition, it includes the physical environment of a society such as landforms, water, and climate. Culture is not innate; it is acquired by learning through experience, especially from one’s parents and grandparents, but also through one’s surroundings. One’s culture influences every thought, action and decision, from everyday attitudes and assumptions to racial hierarchies and magical beliefs. There are many theories about the origin of culture. The 19th-century classical evolutionists (such as Edward Burnett Tylor and Lewis H. Morgan) held that the human mind is a predetermined pattern, and that as the human species developed, it developed cultures everywhere along similar lines. Others, known as “diffusionists”–including Fritz Graebner and Elliot Smith–believed that cultures develop in accordance with the laws of geographical diffusion, and that any trait developed once in a culture will spread to other cultures as it is adopted and learned. In more recent times, scholars have tended to avoid such grand theories, and have sought to understand culture on a more local level. This has led to the growth of a variety of subfields within cultural history, such as ethnomusicology, historical sociology, and the history of science. Many of these fields are in constant contact, and even cross-disciplinary studies are common. The resulting works often reflect the influence of each discipline upon the other, such as the use of psychoanalysis in the writings of historians or the influence of the Renaissance era on the paintings of Salvador Dali. It is a common belief that a culture can be defined as a community of people with similar beliefs, customs and art, as well as language, music, and other social activities. However, this is not necessarily true, as it may depend on a variety of factors such as geography, genetics, and whether a particular culture is isolated. For example, it is much more likely that a culture in a remote location will develop differently from a highly-developed culture in an urban setting. The study of culture is a complex and interdisciplinary endeavor, and its implications are far-reaching. It is a field that requires a great deal of critical thinking and analysis, in order to arrive at valid conclusions. Increasingly, researchers in other disciplines are crossing disciplinary boundaries to work together on issues in cultural history, as illustrated by the growing number of works that employ sociological, postcolonialist, and feminist methodologies. In this respect, cultural history is no exception to the general collapse of disciplinary boundaries that characterizes contemporary scholarship in all areas of the humanities and social sciences.