THE CULTURAL TURN IN COMMUNICATION STUDIES

POSITIONS ON CULTUROLOGICAL OBSERVATION OF COMMUNICATION

(Keynote Speech at the Symposium “The Relevance of Cultural Studies” at

Athens University, June 26, 03)

Thomas A. Bauer

In social sciences and humanities of the late last century has been developed a tendency of analyzing social practice (communication, organization and systems of it) by a cultural view of consideration. This “cultural turn” was somehow provoked by the end of capacity of explication of structural scientific models and by the need of new, open and changeable conceptions facing an ever changing and complex social universe. The cultural turn seems to go farer than traditional theories went: it concerns the epistemology, theory-building, the interest of application, and even the social practice itself. It happens within a radical change of paradigms and signifies a transition or a transformation from closed to open systems of conceptualization.

THE CULTURAL ASPECT OF TECHNOLOGY

Fatemeh farahani

Today in many developing countries insufficient progress in science and technology is considered to be the chief reason for general backwardness; on the contrary, many in the industrially advanced societies hold unfettered technological progress as the roots of all social ills.

E. B. TYLOR AND THE PROBLEM

OF PRIMITIVE CULTURE

Laavanyan Ratnapalan

Abstract

Edward Burnett Tylor's (1832-1917) theory of survivals, or elements of the “primitive” or archaic past that continued to play an active part in the beliefs of the present day, hallmarks the Victorian effort to isolate and display what were thought to be the most developed features of the contemporary world. However, in focusing on what was outmoded in society, the theory of survivals brought primitive beliefs into an uncomfortable relationship with the beliefs of the present, threatening to disrupt the harmony of this conception. The resulting problems of recognition and understanding in the theory of survivals led Tylor finally to affirm a static and mechanical view of the continuity of cultures, in opposition to the radical, dynamic view with which he had been working until the publication in 1871 of Primitive Culture.

WHAT PRAGMATISM MEANS  

William James (1906)

I am well aware how odd it must seem to some of you to hear me say that an idea is ‘true’ so long as to believe it is profitable to our lives. That it is good, for as much as it profits, you will gladly admit. If what we do by its aid is good, you will allow the idea itself to be good in so far forth, for we are the better for possessing it. But is it not a strange misuse of the word ‘truth,’ you will say, to call ideas also ‘true’ for this reason?

RUSSIAN CULTURLOGY:

CONTINUING WHERE MARXISM LEFT OFF

Marlene Laruelle

It is difficult to talk about the role of the “Russian idea” today in general terms.  In the academic realm, many of the textbooks of culturology (not all, but a majority) are a kind of institutionalization of the debates about ‘the Russian idea.’ Culturology presents itself both as teaching this thought and as continuing it after what is seen as the Soviet hiatus.

FOREWORD TO HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY*

Carl O. Sauer

APOLOGIA

These remarks are directed to the nature of historical geography and to some of its problems. By preference I should present data and conclusions from my own work in Mexico. On second thought, however, I am moved to do what has been done so often in the annual address before this body, to set forth in some manner a confession of the faith that has stood behind one's work. 

It is obvious that we who call ourselves geographers do not at present understand each other very well. We have more fraternal feeling of belonging together than common intellectual ground, on which we meet freely and easily. We can hardly claim to be getting our chief intellectual stimulus from one another, to be waiting impatiently on the research of colleagues as needed for our own work. We are of various minds as to the fields in which we are engaged. As long as we are in such a condition of uncertainty about our major objectives and problems, attempts must be made from time to time to give orientation to ourselves along a common course.

CULTURAL STUDIES IN VNU-HCMC:

THEORETICAL BASIS AND APPROACH

Prof. Dr. Tran Ngoc Them

(Vietnam National University - HCMC)

In: 2007 Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Society Shanghai Conference "Conditions of Knowledge and Cultural Production", Shanghai, 15-27 June 2007

CULTURAL IDENTITY AND ASIAN MODERNIZATION

Robert M. BELLAH

The problem posed by this symposium to commemorate the Centennial of Kokugakuin University is a central one for Japan, Asia and, indeed, for the whole world. How to reconcile cultural identity and modernization is a question that every nation and every people has to face today.

TOWARDS A PLURALISTIC CULTURE:

Essays on Cultures in the Postmodern Age

by

Tran Van Doan

GS.TS. Trần Văn Đoàn giảng về Pluralistic Culture cho HVCH VHH k7 ĐHKHXH-NV ngày 25-1-2008

Cultural Heritage and Contemporary Change

Series IIID, Southeast Asia, Volume 8

General Editor: George F. McLean

The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy

Copyright  ©   2006 by

Box 261, Cardinal Station, Washington, D.C. 20064

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication

THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS?

Samuel Huntington

Foreign Affairs. Summer 1993, v72, n3, p22(28)
© Council on Foreign Relations Inc.

Samuel P. Huntington is the Eaton Professor of the Science of Government and Director of the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University. This article is the product of the Olin Institute's project on "The Changing Security Environment and American National Interests."