Speaking of Culture

by Nolan Weil

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This text is a collection of instructor-authored background readings intended to accompany other activities, discussions, experiences, projects, and readings for courses in Cross-Cultural Perspectives. Its main purpose is to define culture and other concepts often associated with it.

Description from LibreTexts.

Publisher
Utah State University
Subjects
Social Sciences, Anthropology
Licence
CC BY-NC 4.0, as LibreTexts states it. Non-commercial use only.
Who can read
Teens profiles and older, judged from its title and subjects

Contents

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  1. Front Matter
  2. TitlePage
  3. InfoPage
  4. Table of Contents
  5. Licensing
  6. 1: What is Culture?
  7. 1.1: Culture, simply defined
  8. 1.2: Brief history of a concept
  9. 1.3: Franz Boas and the birth of American anthropology
  10. 1.4: Later 20th and 21st century developments
  11. 1.5: Final reflections
  12. 2: The Human Family
  13. 2.1: Origins and Diversity of Humanity
  14. 2.2: Where did we all come from?
  15. 2.3: The Multiregional Origin Hypothesis
  16. 2.4: The Recent African Origin Hypothesis
  17. 2.5: But why do we all look so different on the surface?
  18. 2.6: Race is not a biologically meaningful concept
  19. 2.7: Final Reflection
  20. 3: Origins of Culture
  21. 3.1: Culture as a product of human activity
  22. 3.2: Paleolithic material culture
  23. 3.3: Stone tools
  24. 3.4: Carved Figurines
  25. 3.5: Painting
  26. 3.6: Origins of mythology
  27. 3.7: Stories of creation – A sampling
  28. 3.8: Similarities among creation stories
  29. 3.9: Accounting for common motifs
  30. 3.10: The Laurasian “Novel”
  31. 3.11: Final Reflection
  32. 3.12: Video Clips and Documentaries
  33. 3.13: References
  34. 4: Material Culture
  35. 4.1: The things we make
  36. 4.2: Taking to the road
  37. 4.3: From one end of the country to another
  38. 4.4: Final reflection
  39. 5: Culture as Thought and Action
  40. 5.1: Non-material aspects of culture
  41. 5.2: Beliefs
  42. 5.3: Values
  43. 5.4: Norms
  44. 5.5: Customs and Traditions
  45. 5.6: Rituals
  46. 5.7: Final reflection
  47. 6: Beliefs, Values, and Cultural Universals
  48. 6.1: Value Orientations Theory
  49. 6.2: Hofstede’s dimensions of culture theory
  50. 6.3: Critique of Hofstede’s theory
  51. 6.4: Final reflection
  52. 7: Group Membership and Identity
  53. 7.1: Preliminary remarks
  54. 7.2: Cultures and subcultures
  55. 7.3: Ethnicity
  56. 7.4: Racial identity
  57. 7.5: Social class and culture
  58. 7.6: Nationality
  59. 7.7: The origin of nations
  60. 7.8: National identity
  61. 7.9: Final reflection
  62. 8: Roots of American National Culture
  63. 8.1: Preliminary remarks
  64. 8.2: American beliefs and values
  65. 8.3: A closer look at American cultural diversity
  66. 8.4: Understanding U.S. Cultural Landscapes
  67. 8.5: Spanish influence
  68. 8.6: French influence
  69. 8.7: Dutch influence
  70. 8.8: Albion’s Seed
  71. 8.9: Englanders from Barbados
  72. 8.10: The Westward Expansion
  73. 8.11: Final reflection
  74. Front Matter
  75. A Note to Students
  76. Introduction
  77. Back Matter
  78. Index
  79. Glossary
  80. Detailed Licensing