Culture and Change: Anthropological Perspectives

fakultatywne

Proficiency in English sufficient to participate in lectures and comprehend assigned readings.

w sali

The course overviews the processes of cultural change and their anthropological accounts.

In this course we will discuss processes of cultural change – their nature, causes and outcomes. We will adopt the viewpoint of cultural anthropology to see how various scholars tried to describe and explain an ever-changing character of human ideas and practices. In the first part of the course we will introduce some general distinctions between forms of cultural change – cultural innovation, evolution and diffusion. In the second part, we will retrace the subsequent transformations of human cultures driven by technological developments – from the Neolithic revolution, through the inventions of writing and print, to the electronic communication media. Finally, in the third part, we will discuss the processes of cultural change brought about by different forms of inter-cultural contact in the modern era – from early colonization to 20th century globalization and creolization.

PART I. CULTURAL CHANGE – BASIC TERMS

1. What is cultural change?

Nanda Serena, Warms Richard L., 2010, Cultural Anthropology, Belmont: Wadsworth, „Culture is Constantly Changing”, pp. 106-10.

2. Cultural innovation

Welz Gisela, 2003, The cultural swirl: anthropological perspectives on innovation, „Global Networks” 3(3), pp. 255-70.

Barnett Homer, 1953, Innovation: The Basis of Cultural Change, New York: McGraw-Hill, ch. II: “The Cultural Background”, p. 39-64; ch. III: “The Cultural Background (continued)”, p. 65-95.

3-4. Cultural evolution

Boyd Robert, Richerson Peter, 2005, The Origin and Evolution of Cultures, Oxford: Oxford University Press, “Introduction”, pp. 3-12.

Heinrich Joseph, 2016, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species and Making Us Smarter, Princeton: Princeton University Press, ch. 4: “How to Make a Cultural Species”, pp. 34-53; ch. 5: “What Are Big Brains For? Or, How Culture Stole Our Guts”, pp. 54-82.

Boyer Pascal, 2000, Evolutionary psychology and cultural transmission, “American Behavioral Scientist”, 43(6), pp. 987-1000.

5. Cultural inertia and cultural loss

Ogburn William, 1922, Social Change with Respect to Culture and Original Nature, New York: B. W. Huebsch, Part IV: “Social Maladjustments”, p. 197-213, 252-54 (“Pueblo dwellers”), 256-65 (“Reasons for cultural lag”).

Heinrich Joseph, 2016, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species and Making Us Smarter, Princeton: Princeton University Press, ch. 12: “Our Collective Brains”, pp. 211-30.

6. Cultural diffusion

Linton Ralph, 1936, The Study of Man, ch. 19: „Diffusion”, pp. 324-46.

Kroeber Alfred L., 1940, Stimulus diffusion, “American Anthropologist”, 42(1), pp. 1-21.

PART II. FROM PALEOLITHIC TO POST-INDUSTRIAL CULTURES

7. From Paleolithic to Neolithic cultures

Diamond Jared, 1999, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, ch. 4: “Farmer power”, pp. 85-92; ch. 5: “History’s haves and have-nots”, pp. 93-103; ch. 6: “To farm or not to farm”, pp. 104-13.

8. From oral to literate cultures

Ong Walter J., Hartley John, 2012, Orality and Literacy: Technologizing of the World, London: Routledge, ch. 4: „Writing restructures conscioussness”, pp. 77-114; ch. 6: „Oral memory, the story line and characterization”, pp. 136-52.

9-10. From agrarian to industrial cultures

Gellner Ernest, 1983, Nations and Nationalism, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, ch. 1-4, pp. 1-52.

Hobsbawm Eric, 1983, Introduction: Inventing Traditions, in: E. Hobsbawm, T. Ranger (eds.), The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-14.

Trevor-Roper Hugh, 1983, The Invention of Tradition: The Highland Tradition of Scotland, in: E. Hobsbawm, T. Ranger (eds.), The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 15-42.

11. From industrial to post-industrial cultures

Castells Manuel, 2010, The Rise of the Network Society, Chichester: Wiley, ch. 5: “The Culture of Real Virtuality”, pp. 355-406.

PART III. FROM LOCAL TO GLOBALIZED CULTURES

12-13. Colonization and Westernization

Wolf Eric, 2010, Europe and People Without History, Berkeley: University of California Press, ch. 6: „The fur trade”, pp. 158-94; ch. 7: “The slave trade”, pp. 195-231.

Sahlins Marshall, 1985, Islands of History, Chicago: Chicago University Press, ch. 1: „Supplement to the voyage of Cook; or, le calcul sauvage”, pp. 1-31; ch. 5: „Structure and history”, pp. 136-55.

Stresser-Péan Guy, 2009, The Sun God and The Savior, Boulder: University Press of Colorado, ch. 1: “Converting the Indians in Sixteenth-Century Central Mexico to Christianity”, pp. 1-24.

Thong Tezenlo, 2012, ‘To Raise the Savage to a Higher Level:’ The Westernization of Nagas and Their Culture, „Modern Asian Studies”, 46(4), pp. 893-918.

14-15. Globalization and creolization

Arjun Appadurai, 2005, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, ch. 5: „Playing with Modernity: The Decolonization of Indian Cricket”, pp. 89-113.

Hannerz Ulf, 2002, Transnational Connections: Culture, People, Places, London: Routledge, ch. 6: „Kokoschka’s return: or, the social organization of creolization”, pp. 65-80.

Participants are able to:

1) distinguish between various forms of cultural change;

2) discuss the main factors of cultural change;

3) explain how cultural change may be hindered or suppressed;

4) analyze contemporary global processes of cultural change.

Oral exam assessing participants’ grasp of the material presented during lectures and in assigned readings. The list of questions for the exam will be provided at the begining of the course.