Theorising Culture

Theorising Culture PDF Author: Jinghe Han
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030238806
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 114

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Book Description
This book seeks for an alternative perspective in analysing cultural phenomena to supplement the norm of Western dominant theorising and conceptualisation. It engages notions and concepts of culture developed by Chinese cultural theorists when addressing Chinese teachers’ cross-cultural experiences in Australian school settings. This alternative approach acknowledges the fact that the generation and development of cultural theories is contextually based. Through the reciprocated theory-data examination, it enables the arguments: Chinese culture is rooted in its written language (hanzi) which makes culture inseparable from language teaching; the core of the culture is linked back to, streamlined with and continues from China’s elongated history; this core has been consistently influential on these teachers’ practices and the observable cultural shift in them could be non-genuine mimicry for survival. Document analysis witnesses the current political push for the culture’s stability and continuity through the national education system across sectors. This book provides background information for teachers with cultural backgrounds different from their students’, and draws on a bank of practice-based evidence to suggest ways to enhance teacher-student relationships in cross-cultural settings.

Theorising Culture

Theorising Culture PDF Author: Jinghe Han
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030238806
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 114

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book seeks for an alternative perspective in analysing cultural phenomena to supplement the norm of Western dominant theorising and conceptualisation. It engages notions and concepts of culture developed by Chinese cultural theorists when addressing Chinese teachers’ cross-cultural experiences in Australian school settings. This alternative approach acknowledges the fact that the generation and development of cultural theories is contextually based. Through the reciprocated theory-data examination, it enables the arguments: Chinese culture is rooted in its written language (hanzi) which makes culture inseparable from language teaching; the core of the culture is linked back to, streamlined with and continues from China’s elongated history; this core has been consistently influential on these teachers’ practices and the observable cultural shift in them could be non-genuine mimicry for survival. Document analysis witnesses the current political push for the culture’s stability and continuity through the national education system across sectors. This book provides background information for teachers with cultural backgrounds different from their students’, and draws on a bank of practice-based evidence to suggest ways to enhance teacher-student relationships in cross-cultural settings.

Theorizing Culture

Theorizing Culture PDF Author: Barbara Adam
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135366810
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
This highly original and timely volume engages scholars from the breadth of social science and the humanities to provide a critical perspective on cultural forms, practices and identities. It looks beyond the postmodern debate to reinstate the critical dimension in cultural analysis, providing a "student-friendly" introduction to key contemporary issues such as the body, AIDS, race, the environment and virtual reality. Theorizing Culture is essential reading for undergraduate courses in cultural and media studies and sociology, and will have considerable appeal for students and scholars of critical theory, gender studies and the history of ideas.

Economics, Culture and Social Theory

Economics, Culture and Social Theory PDF Author: William A. Jackson
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1849802114
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
. . . the book is excellent in setting out and explaining a fundamental critique of economics one moreover that has been missed by most other current critics of the field. Making this case is an achievement. Hopefully, it will have a greater impact than its author probably expects. Journal of Cultural Economics Economics evolved by perfecting the taking of culture out of its reductionist and virtual world. But culture has recently been reintroduced, both as a sphere of application for an otherwise unchanging methodology and as a weak form of acknowledging that the economic alone is inadequate as the basis even for explaining the economy. This volume is an essential critical starting point for understanding the changing relationship between economics and culture and in offering a more satisfactory and stable union between the two. Ben Fine, University of London, UK Economics, Culture and Social Theory examines how culture has been neglected in economic theorising and considers how economics could benefit by incorporating ideas from social and cultural theory. Orthodox economics has prompted a long line of cultural criticism that goes back to the origins of economic theory and extends to recent debates surrounding postmodernism. William A. Jackson discusses the cultural critique of economics, identifies the main arguments, and assesses their implications. Among the topics covered are relativism and realism, idealism and materialism, agency and structure, hermeneutics, semiotics, and cultural evolution. Drawing from varied literatures, notably social and cultural theory, the book stresses the importance of culture for economic behaviour and looks at the prospects for a renewed and culturally informed economics. The book will be invaluable to heterodox economists and to anyone interested in the links between culture and the economy. It takes an interdisciplinary approach, arguing against the isolation of economics, and will therefore hold wide appeal for social scientists working in related fields, as well as for economists specialising in cultural economics and economic methodology.

History and Cultural Theory

History and Cultural Theory PDF Author: Simon Gunn
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317868161
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
In recent times there has been recognition of the growing influence of cultural theory on historical writing. Foucault, Bourdieu, Butler and Spivak are just some of the thinkers whose ideas have been taken up and deployed by historians. What are these ideas and where do they come from? How have cultural theorists thought about 'history'? And how have historians applied theoretical insights to enhance their own understanding of events in the past? This book provides a wide-ranging and authoritative guide to the often vexed and controversial relationship between history and contemporary theory. It analyses the concepts that concern both theorists and historians, such as power, identity, modernity and postcolonialism, and offers a critical evaluation of them from an historical standpoint. Written in an accessible manner, History and Cultural Theory gives historians and students an invaluable summary of the impact of cultural theory on historiography over the last twenty years, and indicates the likely directions of the subject in the future.

Theorizing Digital Cultures

Theorizing Digital Cultures PDF Author: Grant D. Bollmer
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 1526453096
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
The rapid development of digital technologies continues to have far reaching effects on our daily lives. This book explains how digital media—in providing the material and infrastructure for a host of practices and interactions—affect identities, bodies, social relations, artistic practices, and the environment. Theorizing Digital Cultures: Shows students the importance of theory for understanding digital cultures and presents key theories in an easy-to-understand way Considers the key topics of cybernetics, online identities, aesthetics and ecologies Explores the power relations between individuals and groups that are produced by digital technologies Enhances understanding through applied examples, including YouTube personalities, Facebook’s ‘like’ button and holographic performers Clearly structured and written in an accessible style, this is the book students need to get to grips with the key theoretical approaches in the field. It is essential reading for students and researchers of digital culture and digital society throughout the social sciences.

Tattoo Culture

Tattoo Culture PDF Author: Lee Barron
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 178348828X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Book Description
Tattoos are a highly visible social and cultural sight, from TV series that represent the lives of tattoo artists and their interactions with clients, to world-class sports stars and the social actors we meet on a daily basis who display visible tattoo designs. Whereas in the not-to-distant past tattoos were commonly culturally perceived to represent an outward sign of social non-conformity or even deviance, tattoos now increasingly transcend class, gender, and age boundaries and arguably are now more culturally acceptable than they have ever been. But why is this the case, and why do so many social actors elect to wear tattoos? Tattoo Culture explores these questions from historical, cultural and media perspectives, but also from the heart of the culture itself, from the dynamics of the tattoo studio, the work of the artist and the world of the tattoo convention, to the perspective of the social actors who bear designs to investigate the meanings which lie being the images. It critically examines the ways in which tattoos alter social actors’ sense of being and their relationship with time in the semiotic ways with which they communicate, to themselves or to the wider world, key elements of their bodily and personal identity and sense of being.

Cultural Theory and the Problem of Modernity

Cultural Theory and the Problem of Modernity PDF Author: Alan Swingewood
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1349268305
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
This book presents a critical analysis of the relation between sociological theory and recent debates in cultural studies. A distinctive sociological perspective is developed based on the work of Marx, Weber, Bourdieu and Bakhtin. The book examines the problems of theorising issues such as modernity, mass culture and postmodernity by advocating a historical and context-based approach.

Theorising Textual Subjects

Theorising Textual Subjects PDF Author: Meili Steele
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521576796
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
Addresses one of the central crises in critical theory today: how to theorise the subject as both a construct of oppressive discourse and a dialogical agent.

Everyday Nationhood

Everyday Nationhood PDF Author: Michael Skey
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137570989
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
This edited collection explores the continuing appeal of nationalism around the world. The authors’ ground-breaking research demonstrates the ways in which national priorities and sensibilities frame an extraordinary array of activities, from classroom discussions and social media posts to global policy-making, as well as identifying the value that can come from feeling part of a national community, especially during times of economic uncertainty and social change. They also note how attachments to nation can often generate powerful emotions, happiness and pride as well as anger and frustration, which can be used to mobilize substantial numbers of people into action. Featuring contributions from leading social scientists across a range of disciplines, including sociology, geography, political science, social psychology, media and cultural studies, the book presents a number of case studies covering a range of countries including Russia, Germany, New Zealand, Serbia, Japan, Azerbaijan, Greece and the USA. Everyday Nationhood will appeal to students and scholars of nationalism, globalization and identity across the social sciences as well as those with an interest in understanding the role of nationalism in shaping some of the most pressing political crises- migration, economic protectionism, populism - of the contemporary era.

Theorizing Cultural Work

Theorizing Cultural Work PDF Author: Mark Banks
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134083513
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
In recent years, cultural work has engaged the interest of scholars from a broad range of social science and humanities disciplines. The debate in this ‘turn to cultural work’ has largely been based around evaluating its advantages and disadvantages: its freedoms and its constraints, its informal but precarious nature, the inequalities within its global workforce, and the blurring of work–life boundaries leading to ‘self-exploitation’. While academic critics have persuasively challenged more optimistic accounts of ‘converged’ worlds of creative production, the critical debate on cultural work has itself leant heavily towards suggesting a profoundly new confluence of forces and effects. Theorizing Cultural Work instead views cultural work through a specifically historicized and temporal lens, to ask: what novelty can we actually attach to current conditions, and precisely what relation does cultural work have to social precedent? The contributors to this volume also explore current transformations and future(s) of work within the cultural and creative industries as they move into an uncertain future. This book challenges more affirmative and proselytising industry and academic perspectives, and the pervasive cult of novelty that surrounds them, to locate cultural work as an historically and geographically situated process. It will be of interest to students and scholars of sociology, cultural studies, human geography, urban studies and industrial relations, as well as management and business studies, cultural and economic policy and development, government and planning.