Sociology of CultureSoc. 160

Professor: Ariane Zambiras

Fall 2014

Donwload today’s slides here:

Defining the scope of the course

• In 1871, Edward Tylor [1832 – 1917, English

anthropologist] wrote that culture is:

• “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.”

We will consider:

• objects

• actions

• mental representations

• institutional structures

Grading

• 25% reading quizzes

• 35% mid-term exam

• 40% final exam

• –––––––––––––––––––––––––

• 100% Your total grade

Study Tools

• Backup (Dropbox/Cloud + hard drive)

• Zotero: bibliography

• Diigo: annotate online reading

• Practice active reading

Today’s class

• Our questions:– What is culture? – Why does it matter?– What is a sign?– What is the relationship between signs /

meaning / action?

Ferdinand de Saussure Swiss linguist, 1857-1913

• Signified = Mental concept of what the signifier stands for, it could be a concept, object or emotion.

• Signifier = the material aspect of it, such as the image, mark, sound, written word etc.

René Magritte (Belgian surrealist painter )

• The Treachery of Images

• (French: La trahison des images, 1928–29)

• Notes on

• Raymond Williams. “Culture” in Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. London: Fontana 1988.

Williams’ text: history of the word “culture”

• Cultivate

• civilization

• cultureS

Williams’ text concludes on 3 general meanings for “culture”

• process of intellectual / spiritual / aesthetic development (18th century)

• a way of life, that unites– a group of people– a time period

• Hippie culture, counter culture

• a specialized body of work produced by intellectuals and artists – the latest one chronologically – Ministry of culture

Reading

• William Sewell, Jr. 1999. “The Concept(s) of Culture” pp. 35-61 in Victoria E. Bonnell and Lynn Hunt (eds.), Beyond the Cultural Turn: New Directions in the Study of Society and Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press).

• Is culture useless as a concept?

The Turkish Bath

1862 painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique INGRES.

Reading

• Howard S. Becker. 1986. “Culture: A Sociological View” pp 11-24 in Doing Things Together: Selected Papers. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University

Press.

• How is collective action created and sustained?

• For Becker: culture is “one of the resources people draw on in order to coordinate their activities”.

• Sociologists study what holds groups of people together

• For Becker: culture is “one of the resources people draw on in order to coordinate their activities”.

How does culture help us act collectively?

• Culture gives us an understanding of how things should be done

Next question: where does culture come from?

For Becker, people create culture by adapting to new conditions.

We are constantly engaged in meaning-making.

Ann Swidler

• Important article:

Ann Swidler. “Culture in Action”. American Sociological Review. Vol. 51, No. 2 (Apr., 1986), pp. 273-286

Quote: “Culture influences action not by providing the ultimate values toward which action is oriented, but by shaping a repertoire or "tool kit" of habits, skills, and styles from which people construct "strategies of action”.”

Max WEBER

• The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.

• The original German text was composed in 1904 and 1905