Cultural Genealogy
Title | Cultural Genealogy PDF eBook |
Author | Raphael Falco |
Publisher | Routledge |
Pages | 372 |
Release | 2016-10-26 |
Genre | Literary Criticism |
ISBN | 1317156544 |
Cultural Genealogy explores the popularization in the Renaissance of the still pervasive myth that later cultures are the hereditary descendants of ancient or older cultures. The core of this myth is the widespread belief that a numinous charismatic power can be passed down unchanged, and in concrete forms, from earlier eras. Raphael Falco shows that such a process of descent is an impossible illusion in a knowledge-based culture. Anachronistic adoption of past values can only occur when these values are adapted and assimilated to the target culture. Without such transcultural adaptation, ancient values would appear as alien artifacts rather than as eternal truths. Scholars have long acknowledged the Renaissance borrowings from classical antiquity, but most studies of translatio studii or translatio imperii tacitly accept the early modern myth that there was a genuine translation of Greek and Roman cultural values from the ancient world to the "modern." But as Falco demonstrates, this is patently not the case. The mastering of ancient languages and the rediscovery of lost texts has masked the fact that surprisingly little of ancient religious, ethical, or political ideology was retained — so little that it is crucial to ask why these myths of transcultural descent have not been recognized and interrogated. Through examples ranging from Petrarch to Columbus, Maffeo Vegio to the Habsburgs, Falco shows how the new techne of systematic genealogy facilitated the process of "remythicizing" the ancient authorities, utterly transforming Greek and Roman values and reforging them into the mold of contemporary needs. Chiefly a study of intellectual culture, Cultural Genealogy has ramifications reaching into all levels of society, both early modern and later.
A Genealogy Of Political Culture
Title | A Genealogy Of Political Culture PDF eBook |
Author | Michael E Brint |
Publisher | Routledge |
Pages | 162 |
Release | 2019-09-10 |
Genre | Political Science |
ISBN | 0429722338 |
In this lively and witty history of the study of political culture, Michael Brint examines the differences between the French sociological tradition from Montesquieu to Tocqueville; the German tradition of cultural philosophy from Kant to Weber; and the American scientific or behavioral tradition from Almond and Verba forward. Enlisting his own tra
A Sociological Genealogy of Culture Wars
Title | A Sociological Genealogy of Culture Wars PDF eBook |
Author | Maya Aguiluz-Ibargüen |
Publisher | Taylor & Francis |
Pages | 157 |
Release | 2023-12-12 |
Genre | Social Science |
ISBN | 1003824064 |
This book analyzes the culture wars as those struggles for the monopoly of the legitimate representation of the world in the normative elucidation of controversial issues linked to values. Public culture in this context would consist of a set of complex classificatory systems of symbols and meanings that constitute a semantic field in permanent dynamic tension. In this work we analyze a whole series of lines of cultural conflict such as the social and semantic genesis of the different forms of “culture war” from the thesis of “modern polytheism” pointed out by Max Weber at the beginning of the 20th century to the national culture wars and the current global culture wars; the social production of truth and the clash with the epistemological tribalisms; the struggles between the new warrior gods, daimons and demons that emerge in modern societies; the struggles of fusion and fission on the symbolic battlefield of “Europe”; the struggles between “pioneers” and “gatekeepers” to define the limits of human nature; the struggles between utopias and dystopias that colonize the present future. This book will be of great help to anybody looking for key interpretations on the nature and structure of modern conflicts in contemporary societies.
Ancestors and Relatives
Title | Ancestors and Relatives PDF eBook |
Author | Eviatar Zerubavel |
Publisher | OUP USA |
Pages | 239 |
Release | 2012-01-26 |
Genre | Family & Relationships |
ISBN | 0199773955 |
Noted social scientist Eviatar Zerubavel casts a critical eye on how we trace our past-individually and collectively arguing that rather than simply find out who our ancestors are from genetics or history, we actually create the stories that make them our ancestors.
Geography and Genealogy
Title | Geography and Genealogy PDF eBook |
Author | Jeanne Kay Guelke |
Publisher | Routledge |
Pages | 199 |
Release | 2016-04-22 |
Genre | Science |
ISBN | 1317128893 |
Genealogy has become a widely popular pursuit, as millions of people now research their family history, trace their forebears, attend family reunions and travel to ancestral home sites. Geographers have much to contribute to the serious study of the family history phenomenon. Land records, maps and even GIS are increasingly used by genealogical investigators. As a cultural practice, it encompasses peoples' emotional attachments to ancestral places and is widely manifest on the ground as personal heritage travel. Family history research also has significant potential to challenge accepted geographical views of migration, ethnicity, socio-economic class and place-based identities. This volume is possibly the first ever book to address the geographical and scholarly aspects of this increasingly popular social phenomenon. It highlights tools and information sources used by geographers and their application to family history research. Furthermore, it examines family history as a socio-cultural practice, including the activities of tourism, archival research and DNA testing.
The SAGE Dictionary of Cultural Studies
Title | The SAGE Dictionary of Cultural Studies PDF eBook |
Author | Chris Barker |
Publisher | SAGE |
Pages | 240 |
Release | 2004-06-09 |
Genre | Social Science |
ISBN | 9780761973416 |
Contains over 200 entries on key concepts and theorists of cultural studies.
Family Trees
Title | Family Trees PDF eBook |
Author | François Weil |
Publisher | Harvard University Press |
Pages | 231 |
Release | 2013-04-30 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 0674076370 |
The quest for roots has been an enduring American preoccupation. Over the centuries, generations have sketched coats of arms, embroidered family trees, established local genealogical societies, and carefully filled in the blanks in their bibles, all in pursuit of self-knowledge and status through kinship ties. This long and varied history of Americans’ search for identity illuminates the story of America itself, according to François Weil, as fixations with social standing, racial purity, and national belonging gave way in the twentieth century to an embrace of diverse ethnicity and heritage. Seeking out one’s ancestors was a genteel pursuit in the colonial era, when an aristocratic pedigree secured a place in the British Atlantic empire. Genealogy developed into a middle-class diversion in the young republic. But over the next century, knowledge of one’s family background came to represent a quasi-scientific defense of elite “Anglo-Saxons” in a nation transformed by immigration and the emancipation of slaves. By the mid-twentieth century, when a new enthusiasm for cultural diversity took hold, the practice of tracing one’s family tree had become thoroughly democratized and commercialized. Today, Ancestry.com attracts over two million members with census records and ship manifests, while popular television shows depict celebrities exploring archives and submitting to DNA testing to learn the stories of their forebears. Further advances in genetics promise new insights as Americans continue their restless pursuit of past and place in an ever-changing world.