Unit One: What is Culture?
Unit One: What is Culture?
Questions to be explored:
What, exactly, is culture? Does the word “culture” have different meanings in different geographical contexts? Is there truly an American culture? Who gets to decide what represents a given national or regional culture? How have Latin American and Iberian cultures been defined? By whom? How and why have such definitions been questions and redefined?
Salient Themes Covered
•Definitions of Culture
•The “culture and civilization” debate
•The “mass culture” debate
•Cultural capital and Culture Wars
•“High” and “Low” Culture
•Latin American and Iberian “stereotypes” and challenges to these stereotypes
•critical responses to cultural capital and cultural industries
Important Dates and Approved Lectures/Events
25-ene
Screening of “Borrowed Identity,” followed by Q&A with Sayed Kashua
7:30 PM
26-ene
Ping Chong, “All Islands Connected Under Water”
4:00 PM
Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum
11-feb
Elena Delgado, “Public Tears and Secrets of the Heart”
4:00 PM
Lucy Ellis Lounge
22-feb
Zsuzsa Gille, “Politics + Materiality: European Capitalism with a Human Face?”
4:00PM
1090 Lincoln Hall
25-feb
Kim Butler, “Healing the Souls of Black Folks”
4:00PM
Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum
25-feb
“Afro-Brazilian Citizenship and the Politics of History”
10:00AM
Lucy Ellis Lounge
3-mar
Sophie Beal, “Floating Cities in the Fiction of Milton Hatoum”
4:00PM
Lucy Ellis Lounge
7-mar
“A Conversation with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor”
7:00PM
Krannert Center for the Performing Arts
29-mar
Ian Middleton, “Music and Trust in Northern Colombia”
2PM
101 International Studies Building, 910 S. Fifth St.
19-apr
Jasbir Puar, “Inhumanist Biopolitics: How Palestine Matters”
7:00PM
Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum
READINGS AND ASSIGNMENTS
19-ene Introducción al curso
21-ene Definiciones de cultura
“Culture” and “cultura” según Wikipedia
26-ene ¿Qué es la cultura?
Studying Culture, Chapter 1 (pág. 6-13)
Gopnick, “Rituals of Taste”
28-ene LECTURE (12-1:30)
“Managing Change in the Historic Center of Cuzco”
101 International Studies Building, 910 S Fifth St.
2-feb La importancia de cultura
Borges, “El escritor argentino y la tradición”
Larra, “Vuelva Ud. mañana”
4-feb CHECK COMPASS FOR UPDATES
9-feb Cultura de masas y cultura popular
Studying Culture 2, Chapter 1 (pág. 13-30)
Adorno/Horkenheimer, “The Culture Industry” (selection)
11-feb Cultura de masas, cultura popular, y crítica cultural
Vega, “Pollito Chicken”
