What Is Cultural?
Cultural is the set of characteristics that distinguishes a group of people from others. According to the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition, culture includes language, religion, cuisine, music and art as well as the social patterns that define relationships among people in a given community. In addition, it can include the attitudes and assumptions that a people have about their lives as well as their prejudices and stereotypes. Essentially, it is the totality of learned behavior that makes up a person’s personality and is transmitted from generation to generation.
Because culture is so complex, it is difficult to pin down a concrete definition. There are likely as many definitions of culture as there are anthropologists who study it, and even a single anthropologist may use slightly different terms or approaches in the course of his or her work. But most agree that culture is not static and that it is always evolving, often in response to both internal and external influences. Some parts of culture change more quickly than others; for example, technological changes can disrupt a society quite rapidly while deep-seated values such as freedom and individualism may change much more slowly. However, even as cultures change, they are usually integrated and interrelated such that one aspect of culture will influence another.
The discipline of cultural history emerged from the field of anthropology in the nineteenth century. Sir Edward Burnett Tylor defined the term “culture” in 1871 in his book Primitive Culture, which was an early and influential contribution to the development of sociocultural anthropology as a separate discipline. His definition of culture included a broad range of concepts such as language, religion, art and law, but he also focused on the broader ideas that make up a person’s identity and worldview. This definition of culture has remained influential today.
In general, cultural historians seek to understand the nature of a culture in the past by studying how that culture was created and what it was comprised of. In their quest, they examine beliefs and ideas—much like intellectual historians—as well as the tangible and intangible aspects of a culture such as symbols, heroes, rituals and a person’s daily life.
One of the challenges that cultural historians face is how to study a culture without direct interaction with the people involved. This is referred to as “armchair anthropology,” and it was common in the early days of cultural history to have scholars study the culture of other societies from the comfort of their own homes or research libraries. Armchair anthropology has since been discredited, but it is still possible for cultural historians to create a sense of the nature of a culture by examining written records and artifacts.
Cultural history is one of the most expansive and challenging branches of historical study. It is a discipline that seeks to explore and interpret the entire range of human existence. Historians who specialize in this area can be found working on topics as diverse as parades in 19th century America, 16th-century Spanish texts and English medical writing. Beneath this diversity, however, a number of common theoretical touchstones can be identified. These include Jurgen Habermas’ concept of the public sphere; Clifford Geertz’s notion of thick description; and the idea that memory is a form of culture.
Cultural is the set of characteristics that distinguishes a group of people from others. According to the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition, culture includes language, religion, cuisine, music and art as well as the social patterns that define relationships among people in a given community. In addition, it can include the attitudes and assumptions that a people have about their lives as well as their prejudices and stereotypes. Essentially, it is the totality of learned behavior that makes up a person’s personality and is transmitted from generation to generation. Because culture is so complex, it is difficult to pin down a concrete definition. There are likely as many definitions of culture as there are anthropologists who study it, and even a single anthropologist may use slightly different terms or approaches in the course of his or her work. But most agree that culture is not static and that it is always evolving, often in response to both internal and external influences. Some parts of culture change more quickly than others; for example, technological changes can disrupt a society quite rapidly while deep-seated values such as freedom and individualism may change much more slowly. However, even as cultures change, they are usually integrated and interrelated such that one aspect of culture will influence another. The discipline of cultural history emerged from the field of anthropology in the nineteenth century. Sir Edward Burnett Tylor defined the term “culture” in 1871 in his book Primitive Culture, which was an early and influential contribution to the development of sociocultural anthropology as a separate discipline. His definition of culture included a broad range of concepts such as language, religion, art and law, but he also focused on the broader ideas that make up a person’s identity and worldview. This definition of culture has remained influential today. In general, cultural historians seek to understand the nature of a culture in the past by studying how that culture was created and what it was comprised of. In their quest, they examine beliefs and ideas—much like intellectual historians—as well as the tangible and intangible aspects of a culture such as symbols, heroes, rituals and a person’s daily life. One of the challenges that cultural historians face is how to study a culture without direct interaction with the people involved. This is referred to as “armchair anthropology,” and it was common in the early days of cultural history to have scholars study the culture of other societies from the comfort of their own homes or research libraries. Armchair anthropology has since been discredited, but it is still possible for cultural historians to create a sense of the nature of a culture by examining written records and artifacts. Cultural history is one of the most expansive and challenging branches of historical study. It is a discipline that seeks to explore and interpret the entire range of human existence. Historians who specialize in this area can be found working on topics as diverse as parades in 19th century America, 16th-century Spanish texts and English medical writing. Beneath this diversity, however, a number of common theoretical touchstones can be identified. These include Jurgen Habermas’ concept of the public sphere; Clifford Geertz’s notion of thick description; and the idea that memory is a form of culture.