Topics for Composition and Discussion

• Compare the different definitions of culture.

• Cultural institutions (заклади) as symbols of the mental health of a nation.

• Civilized and uncivilized behavior.

Text b. Anthropology, Culturology or Cultural Studies?

The disciplines which investigate cultures are called anthropology, cultural studies and culturology. These academic fields are related but not identical.

Anthropology is the study of human beings (in Greek "Anthropos-" means "human", and "-logy" means "study of"). It is the science which studies man both as an animal and as living in society, his origins, distribution, social habits, culture, etc. Anthropologists believe that people use symbols to communicate (express) their experiences – who they are, what they believe, where they started. Anthropologists call this use of symbols "culture". For example, immigrants (people who move from one country to another) may keep some of their customs and traditions from their old country. By keeping their culture in this way, they express who they are and that they came from somewhere else.

Cultural anthropology is the study of how people live their lives now and how they may have lived in the past, including the tools they used and the food they got and ate. It is also related to sociology and social psychology.

British anthropologist Edward Tylor studied culture in its wide ethnographic sense as a complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired (придбані) by man as a member of society.

Modern American anthropology, founded by Franz Boas, rejects (заперечує, відкидає) the idea of cultural evolution (meaning that human societies progressed through stages of barbarism to civilization). American anthropologists made culture an object of scientific analysis. They believe in the psychic unity of humankind and the universality of culture. At the same time, they are especially interested in the great variety of forms of culture around the world, and the many ways individuals are influenced by their own cultures.

In the United Kingdom, sociologists and other scholars influenced by Marxism, such as Stuart Hall and Raymond Williams, developed Cultural Studies. It generally concerns the political nature of contemporary culture, as well as its past historical changes, conflicts, and problems.

Today, cultural studies combines political economy, communication, sociology, literary theory, media theory, film/video studies, cultural anthropology, philosophy, museum studies and art history. In this academic field researchers often concentrate on how different phenomena (явища) relate to ideology, nationality, social class, gender. Cultural studies is concerned with the meaning and practices of everyday life. These practices comprise (охоплюють) the ways people do things (such as watching television, or eating out) in a given culture.

In the context of cultural studies, the idea of a text not only includes written language, but also films, photographs, fashion or hairstyles: the texts of cultural studies comprise all the meaningful artifacts of culture. Similarly, the discipline widens the concept of "culture". "Culture" for a cultural studies researcher not only includes traditional high culture (the culture of ruling social groups) and popular culture, but also everyday meanings and practices. The last two have become the main focus of cultural studies. A recent approach (підхід) is comparative cultural studies.

Cultural studies is not a unified theory but a broad field of study including many different approaches, methods, and academic perspectives; as in any academic discipline, cultural studies academics often debate among themselves.

The object of culturology is culture as the integral system of various cultures – national, professional, racial, sexual, etc. This discipline arose in the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s. The Soviet scientific school produced such outstanding scholars as Mikhail Bakhtin, Aleksei Losev, Sergei Averintsev, Georgy Gachev, Yury Lotman, Vyacheslav Ivanov, Vladimir Toporov, Vladimir Bibler, and others.

The closest English equivalent of "culturology" is no doubt (без сумніву) the term "cultural studies."

The contemporary Russian meaning, however, conveys the concept of a whole, indivisible discipline which can't be reduced to a number of special studies.

Exercise 14.

• Read Text B and answer the following questions:

What do researchers in cultural studies mainly concentrate on?

What does the idea of a text include in the context of cultural studies?

Do you agree that human societies progressed from barbarism to civilization? Give your reasons.