What is Culture

What is culture? Does culture conditions our subjectivity, our families, our thinking, or our lives? Can we study and understand cultures that are different from ours? In this course we will examine different methods for approaching and attempting to understand culture. We consider anthropological texts that provide a guideline to assessing cultures (Levi-Strauss, Gertz). We will consider texts of those who migrated to different cultures and write about the difficulties and struggles they have had to overcome. We will read Rousseau’s essay on the origins on social inequality, as he attempts to explain why inequality has become a “natural” phenomenon. We will read Freud’s analysis of culture, as well as Nietzsche’s and Foucault’s attempts to follow cultural transformations. We will consider Marx and Engels’ view of work as that which structures culture. And, we will consider different cultural myths that explain one’s origin. In short, we will examine current perceptions of culture.

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