Towards a Scientific Theory of Culture

Towards a Scientific Theory of Culture
Author: Oscar Fern Ndez
Publisher: Trafford Publishing
Total Pages: 161
Release: 2012-01-20
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1466911808

This book is a elaborated research about one of the most important Anthropologist in the history of the discipline, who initialized the modern Anthropology: Bronislaw Malinowski. This Social Scientist, with his methodological innovations, became one of the proponents of the 20th century transformation of speculative anthropology into the modern Science of Humanity and the master who trained an entire generation of anthropologists whose studies and theories dominated the academic world until the second half of the 20th century.

Cultural Evolution

Cultural Evolution
Author: Alex Mesoudi
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2011-07-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0226520455

Charles Darwin changed the course of scientific thinking by showing how evolution accounts for the stunning diversity and biological complexity of life on earth. Recently, there has also been increased interest in the social sciences in how Darwinian theory can explain human culture. Covering a wide range of topics, including fads, public policy, the spread of religion, and herd behavior in markets, Alex Mesoudi shows that human culture is itself an evolutionary process that exhibits the key Darwinian mechanisms of variation, competition, and inheritance. This cross-disciplinary volume focuses on the ways cultural phenomena can be studied scientifically—from theoretical modeling to lab experiments, archaeological fieldwork to ethnographic studies—and shows how apparently disparate methods can complement one another to the mutual benefit of the various social science disciplines. Along the way, the book reveals how new insights arise from looking at culture from an evolutionary angle. Cultural Evolution provides a thought-provoking argument that Darwinian evolutionary theory can both unify different branches of inquiry and enhance understanding of human behavior.

Cultural Materialism

Cultural Materialism
Author: Marvin Harris
Publisher: AltaMira Press
Total Pages: 412
Release: 2001-08-28
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0759116962

Cultural Materialism, published in 1979, was Marvin Harris's first full-length explication of the theory with which his work has been associated. While Harris has developed and modified some of his ideas over the past two decades, generations of professors have looked to this volume as the essential starting point for explaining the science of culture to students. Now available again after a hiatus, this edition of Cultural Materialism contains the complete text of the original book plus a new introduction by Orna and Allen Johnson that updates his ideas and examines the impact that the book and theory have had on anthropological theorizing.

The Two Cultures

The Two Cultures
Author: C. P. Snow
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2012-03-26
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1107606144

The importance of science and technology and future of education and research are just some of the subjects discussed here.

A Scientific Theory of Culture and Other Essays

A Scientific Theory of Culture and Other Essays
Author: Bronislaw Malinowski
Publisher: Read Books Ltd
Total Pages: 219
Release: 2014-04-10
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1473393159

This vintage text contains three essays by Bronislaw Malinowski on the theory of functionalism. The first essay stipulates that anthropology can be viewed in a scientific manner, and offers insights into culture, human nature, and the ideal object of study. The other essays in this collection further explore functionalism and analyse the work and influence of Sir James Frazer on the field of anthropology. This book is highly recommended for those with an interest in the development of anthropology, and it would make for a worthy addition to collections of allied literature. The sections of this text include: "Culture as the Subject of Scientific Investigation", "A Minimum Definition of Science for the Humanist", "Concepts and Methods of Anthropology", "What is Culture?", "Theory of Organised Behaviour", "The Concrete Isolates of Organized Behaviour", etcetera. We are republishing this vintage book now in an affordable, modern edition - complete with a specially commissioned new biography of the author.

Toward a Theory of Cultural Linguistics

Toward a Theory of Cultural Linguistics
Author: Gary B. Palmer
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Total Pages: 365
Release: 1996
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 029276569X

Imagery, broadly defined as all that people may construe in cognitive models pertaining to vision, hearing, touch, taste, smell, and feeling states, precedes and shapes human language. In this pathfinding book, Gary B. Palmer restores imagery to a central place in studies of language and culture by bringing together the insights of cognitive linguistics and anthropology to form a new theory of cultural linguistics. Palmer begins by showing how cognitive grammar complements the traditional anthropological approaches of Boasian linguistics, ethnosemantics, and the ethnography of speaking. He then applies his cultural theory to a wealth of case studies, including Bedouin lamentations, spatial organization in Coeur d'Alene place names and anatomical terms, Kuna narrative sequence, honorifics in Japanese sales language, the domain of ancestral spirits in Proto-Bantu noun-classifiers, Chinese counterfactuals, the non-arbitrariness of Spanish verb forms, and perspective schemas in English discourse. This pioneering approach suggests innovative solutions to old problems in anthropology and new directions for research. It will be important reading for everyone interested in anthropology, linguistics, cognitive science, and philosophy.

Culture Theory

Culture Theory
Author: Richard A. Shweder
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 376
Release: 1984-12-28
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780521318310

This book examines the role of symbols and meaning in the development of mind, self, and emotion in culture.

Logics of History

Logics of History
Author: William H. Sewell Jr.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 425
Release: 2009-07-27
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0226749193

While social scientists and historians have been exchanging ideas for a long time, they have never developed a proper dialogue about social theory. William H. Sewell Jr. observes that on questions of theory the communication has been mostly one way: from social science to history. Logics of History argues that both history and the social sciences have something crucial to offer each other. While historians do not think of themselves as theorists, they know something social scientists do not: how to think about the temporalities of social life. On the other hand, while social scientists’ treatments of temporality are usually clumsy, their theoretical sophistication and penchant for structural accounts of social life could offer much to historians. Renowned for his work at the crossroads of history, sociology, political science, and anthropology, Sewell argues that only by combining a more sophisticated understanding of historical time with a concern for larger theoretical questions can a satisfying social theory emerge. In Logics of History, he reveals the shape such an engagement could take, some of the topics it could illuminate, and how it might affect both sides of the disciplinary divide.

Studying Contemporary Western Society

Studying Contemporary Western Society
Author: Margaret Mead
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2004
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9781571818164

Few anthropologists today realize the pioneering role Margaret Mead played in the investigation of contemporary cultures. This volume collects and presents a variety of her essays on research methodology relating to contemporary culture. Many of these essays were printed originally in limited circulation journals, research reports and books edited by others. They reflect Mead's continuing commitment to searching out methods for studying and extending the anthropologist's tools of investigation for use in complex societies. Essays on American and European societies, intergenerational relations, architecture and social space, industrialization, and interracial relations are included in this varied and exciting collection.

Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity

Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity
Author: Jeffrey C. Alexander
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 326
Release: 2004-03-22
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0520235959

Five sociologists develop a theoretical model of 'cultural trauma' & build a new understanding of how social groups interact with emotion to create new & binding understandings of social responsibility.