Cultural Consensus and Cultural Consonance: Advancing a Cognitive Theory of Culture

Field Methods ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 383-398
Author(s):  
William W. Dressler

Theoretical and methodological developments guided by a cognitive theory of culture have advanced our understanding of cultural processes over the past 40 years. The theoretical construct of cultural models, developed in the 1970s, provided a more precise definition of culture. The cultural consensus model, introduced in 1986, enabled investigators to verify and analyze the degree to which culture was shared and how it was distributed. Subsequent advances in the cultural consensus model, especially the analysis of residual agreement, provided a more complete approach to describing intracultural diversity. Finally, the concept and measurement of cultural consonance, introduced in 1996, demonstrated how shared cultural models link to social practice. This article provides a brief overview of these trends in the study of culture, with an emphasis on how this theory and these methods have been applied in research.

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 19-37
Author(s):  
YOTAM WERZANSKY-ORLAND

Can western human society apply its definition of the term “animal” on itself? Is it possible that a “person” is not only human? In this article, I explore and analyze various and interdisciplinary doctrines and approaches towards nonhuman animals in order to question the current status-quo regarding nonhuman animals. Throughout history, as Man developed self-awareness and the ability to empathize with others, hunters were associated with wolves and began to domesticate them and other animals. With the introduction of different religions and beliefs into human society, Man was given the lead in the food chain, and the status of the nonhuman animals became objectified and subject of the property of human animals. Common modern taxonomy identified and described approximately 1.9 million different species. Some estimate the total number of species on earth in 8.7 million. The Human is just one of 5,416 other species in the Mammal class and shares a place of honour among hundreds of other Primates and Great Apes. It appears to be commonly and scientifically accepted that humans are animals. Humans, as other nonhuman animals, all meet the definitions of the term. However, it seems that there is a wide gap between the human-generated definitions (HGDs) and the human social practice that created a distinct line between humans and “animals”. This alienation is best illustrated by the commonly mistaken equivalence between the terms “human” and “person”, as at least some nonhuman animals answer to many other HGDs. In this article I try to show that a rational and logical interpretation of these definitions’ nonhuman animals (at least some), should be regarded as persons and to suggest an approach to implement in the future.


Author(s):  
K. T. Tokuyasu

During the past investigations of immunoferritin localization of intracellular antigens in ultrathin frozen sections, we found that the degree of negative staining required to delineate u1trastructural details was often too dense for the recognition of ferritin particles. The quality of positive staining of ultrathin frozen sections, on the other hand, has generally been far inferior to that attainable in conventional plastic embedded sections, particularly in the definition of membranes. As we discussed before, a main cause of this difficulty seemed to be the vulnerability of frozen sections to the damaging effects of air-water surface tension at the time of drying of the sections.Indeed, we found that the quality of positive staining is greatly improved when positively stained frozen sections are protected against the effects of surface tension by embedding them in thin layers of mechanically stable materials at the time of drying (unpublished).


Derrida Today ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Morris

Over the past thirty years, academic debate over pornography in the discourses of feminism and cultural studies has foundered on questions of the performative and of the word's definition. In the polylogue of Droit de regards, pornography is defined as la mise en vente that is taking place in the act of exegesis in progress. (Wills's idiomatic English translation includes an ‘it’ that is absent in the French original). The definition in Droit de regards alludes to the word's etymology (writing by or about prostitutes) but leaves the referent of the ‘sale’ suspended. Pornography as la mise en vente boldly restates the necessary iterability of the sign and anticipates two of Derrida's late arguments: that there is no ‘the’ body and that performatives may be powerless. Deriving a definition of pornography from a truncated etymology exemplifies the prosthesis of origin and challenges other critical discourses to explain how pornography can be understood as anything more than ‘putting (it) up for sale’.


Author(s):  
Volker Scheid

This chapter explores the articulations that have emerged over the last half century between various types of holism, Chinese medicine and systems biology. Given the discipline’s historical attachments to a definition of ‘medicine’ that rather narrowly refers to biomedicine as developed in Europe and the US from the eighteenth century onwards, the medical humanities are not the most obvious starting point for such an inquiry. At the same time, they do offer one advantage over neighbouring disciplines like medical history, anthropology or science and technology studies for someone like myself, a clinician as well as a historian and anthropologist: their strong commitment to the objective of facilitating better medical practice. This promise furthermore links to the wider project of critique, which, in Max Horkheimer’s definition of the term, aims at change and emancipation in order ‘to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them’. If we take the critical medical humanities as explicitly affirming this shared objective and responsibility, extending the discipline’s traditional gaze is not a burden but becomes, in fact, an obligation.


2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 281-297
Author(s):  
Tom Walker

Allusions to other texts abound in John McGahern's fiction. His works repeatedly, though diffidently, refer to literary tradition. Yet the nature of such allusiveness is still unclear. This article focuses on how allusion in The Pornographer (1979) is depicted as an intellectual and social practice, embodying particular attitudes towards the function of texts and the knowledge they represent. Moreover, the critique of the practice of allusion that the novel undertakes is shown to have broader significance in terms of McGahern's whole oeuvre and its evolving attempts to salvage something of present value from the literature of the past.


2016 ◽  
pp. 52-65
Author(s):  
Patryk Kołodyński ◽  
Paulina Drab

Over the past several years, transplantology has become one of the fastest developing areas of medicine. The reason is, first and foremost, a significant improvement of the results of successful transplants. However, much controversy arouse among the public, on both medical and ethical grounds. The article presents the most important concepts and regulations relating to the collection and transplantation of organs and tissues in the context of the European Convention on Bioethics. It analyses the convention and its additional protocol. The article provides the definition of transplantation and distinguishes its types, taking into account the medical criteria for organ transplants. Moreover, authors explained the issue of organ donation ex vivo and ex mortuo. The European Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine clearly regulates the legal aspects concerning the transplantation and related basic concepts, and therefore provides a reliable source of information about organ transplantation and tissue. This act is a part of the international legal order, which includes the established codification of bioethical standards.


Author(s):  
Суусар Искендерова

Аннотация: Исследование проблемы фольклоризма является наиболее актуальной в современной науке о фольклоре. На разных этапах развития художественной литературы для формирования индивидуального творчества писателя особенно значимым становятся фольклорные жанры, сюжетные мотивы и художественные средства. В статье рассматривается связь письменной литературы и фольклора, особенно точка зрения проблеме фольклоризма в прошлом и их анализ. Термин «фольклоризм» начал использоваться советскими исследователями учеными как научный термин еще в 1930-х гг. Термин «фольклоризм» используется в различных сферах культуры, а в этой статье мы будем рассматривать в литературе. Несмотря на то, что на протяжении многих лет этот вопрос изучается литературоведами, фольклористами, все -таки нет единого теоретического определения понятия. Ключевые слова: фольклор, фольклоризм, литература, культура, письменная литература, художественная литература, оседлый народ, пословицы и поговорки, фольклорные песни. Аннотация: Көркөм адабияттын өнүгүүсүнүн ар кайсы баскычтарында сүрөткердин жеке чыгармачылыгынын калыптанышы үчүн фольклордук жанрлар, сюжеттер, мотивдер жана көркөм каражаттар айрыкча мааниге ээ. Макалада жазма адабият менен фольклордук карым-катышы, айрыкча фольклоризм маселеси жөнүндө мурдагы көз караштарга кайрылып, аларга талдоо жүргүзүү менен бирге автор өз байкоолорунда келтирет. “Фольклоризм” деген илимий термин 1930-жылы баштап колдонула баштаган. “Фольклоризм” термини маданияттын түрдүү сфераларында кеңири колдо- нулат, бул жерде адабияттагы колдонулушун каралат. Макалада адабий материал менен фольклордук байланышын терең түшүнүү үчүн адабий фольклоризм маселесинин талаштуу жактары каралат. Түйүндүү сөздөр: фольклор, фольклоризм, адабият, маданият, жазма адабият, көркөм адабият, көчмөн калк, макал-лакап, фольклордук ырлар. Annotation: The study of the problem of folklore is the most relevant in the modern science of folklore. At various stages in the development of fiction, folklore genres, plot motifs, and artistic means become especially significant for the formation of the writer's individual creativity. The article examines the relationship between written literature and folklore, especially the point of view of the problem of folklorism in the past and their analysis. The term "folklorism" began to be used by Soviet scholars as a scientific term back in the 1930s. The term "folklorism" is used in various fields of culture, and in this article we will consider in the literature. Despite the fact that for many years this issue has been studied by literary scholars, folklorists, all the same there is no single theoretical definition of the concept. Keywords: folklore, folklorism, literature, culture, written literature, fiction, settled people, proverbs and sayings, folk songs.


Author(s):  
Елена Александровна Тарханова

За последние двадцать лет в мире сформировалась концепция «зеленой» экономики, которая соединила в себе комплексную увязку двух ключевых компонентов: экономического и экологического. Такая модель экономики должна способствовать более гармоничному согласованию между этими компонентами, которое было бы уместно для всех государств. В статье изучены предпосылки становления и развития «зеленой» экономической модели. Проведено исследование подходов международных организаций к определению понятия «зеленая» экономика. Over the past twenty years, the concept of a "green" economy has emerged in the world, which combines a complex alignment of two key components: economic and environmental. Such an economic model should contribute to a more harmonious harmonization between these components, which would be appropriate for all groups of countries. The article studies the prerequisites for the formation and development of a "green" economic model. A study of the approaches of national and international organizations to the definition of the concept of "green" economy.


Author(s):  
Shushma Malik

This chapter explores how Wilde uses ‘historic sense’ (the intuition of a learned historian and the antecedent of historical criticism) as a tool with which to analyse the past, particularly the criminal emperors of ancient Rome. In his essay ‘Pen, Pencil, and Poison’, Wilde claims that ‘true historical sense’ in relation to the past allows us to ignore the crimes of Nero and Tiberius, and instead to recognize and appreciate them as artists. His decadent reading of the past is undermined, however, when we compare this version of historically guided intuition with his definition of the phrase in other works. By examining ‘Pen, Pencil, and Poison’ alongside The Picture of Dorian Gray and ‘Epistola: In Carcere et Vinculis’, we can see how Wilde manipulates his readings of the criminal emperors of Rome in order to fit his own changing relationship with Decadence and the (im)morality of crime.


2020 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 77-96
Author(s):  
Sujit Sivasundaram

AbstractThe Pacific has often been invisible in global histories written in the UK. Yet it has consistently been a site for contemplating the past and the future, even among Britons cast on its shores. In this lecture, I reconsider a critical moment of globalisation and empire, the ‘age of revolutions’ at the end of the eighteenth century and the start of the nineteenth century, by journeying with European voyagers to the Pacific Ocean. The lecture will point to what this age meant for Pacific islanders, in social, political and cultural terms. It works with a definition of the Pacific's age of revolutions as a surge of indigeneity met by a counter-revolutionary imperialism. What was involved in undertaking a European voyage changed in this era, even as one important expedition was interrupted by news from revolutionary Europe. Yet more fundamentally vocabularies and practices of monarchy were consolidated by islanders across the Pacific. This was followed by the outworkings of counter-revolutionary imperialism through agreements of alliance and alleged cessation. Such an argument allows me, for instance, to place the 1806 wreck of the Port-au-Prince within the Pacific's age of revolutions. This was an English ship used to raid French and Spanish targets in the Pacific, but which was stripped of its guns, iron, gunpowder and carronades by Tongans. To chart the trajectory from revolution and islander agency on to violence and empire is to appreciate the unsettled paths that gave rise to our modern world. This view foregrounds people who inhabited and travelled through the earth's oceanic frontiers. It is a global history from a specific place in the oceanic south, on the opposite side of the planet to Europe.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document