Jump to content

Culturology

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Culturologyor thescience of cultureis a branch of thesocial sciencesconcerned with the scientific understanding,description,analysis,andpredictionofculturesas a whole. Whileethnologyandanthropologystudied different cultural practices, such studies includeddiverse aspects:sociological,psychological,etc., and the need was recognized[by whom?]for a discipline focused exclusively on cultural aspects.[1]

In Russia

[edit]

The notion of culturology (‹See Tfd›Russian:культурология), as aninterdisciplinarybranch of the humanities, may be traced in the Soviet Union to the late 1960s and associated with the work ofMikhail Bakhtin,Aleksei Losev,Sergey Averintsev,Georgy Gachev,Juri Lotman,Vyacheslav Ivanov,Vladimir Toporov,Edward Markarian, and others.[2]This kind of research challengedMarxistsocio-political approach to culture.

Between 1980 and 1990, culturology received official recognition in Russia and was legalized as a form of science and a subject of study for institutions of higher learning. After thedissolution of the Soviet Union,it was introduced into theHigher Attestation Commission's list of specialties for which scientific degrees may be awarded inRussiaand is now a subject of study during the first year at institutions ofhigher educationand insecondary schools.[3]Defined as the study of humancultures,their integral systems, and their influence on human behavior, it may be formally compared to the Western discipline ofcultural studies,although it has a number of important distinctions.

Over past decades the following basic cultural schools were formed:

  • philosophy of culture(A. Arnold, G. V. Drach, N. S. Zlobin, M. S. Kagan, V. M. Mezhuyev, Y. N. Solonin, M. B. Turov and others)
  • theory of culture (B. S. Yerasov, A. S. Karmin, V. A. Lukov, A. A. Pelipenko, E. V Sokolov, A. Ya. Fliyer and others),
  • cultural history(S. N. Ikonnikova, I. V. Kondakov, E. A. Shulepova, I. G. Yakovenko and others),
  • sociology of culture(I. Akhiezer, L. G. Ionin, L. N. Kogan, A. I. Shendrik and others),
  • cultural anthropology(A. A. Belik, Ye. A. Orlova, A. S. Orlov-Kretschmer, Yu. M.. Reznik and others),
  • applied cultural studies (O. Astaf'eva, I. M. Bykhovskaya and others),
  • cultural studies art (K. E. Razlogov, N. A. Hrenov and others),
  • semiotics of culture(Juri Lotman,V. N. Toporov,V. V. Ivanov,E. M. Meletinsky and others),
  • cultural education (G. I. Zvereva, A. I. Kravchenko, T. F. Kuznetsova, L. M. Mosolova and others).[citation needed]

From 1992, research was started by the Russian Institute for Cultural Research. Today, along the line of the central office located in Moscow, three branches of RIC have been opened – Siberian (opened in 1993 in Omsk), St. Petersburg Department (opened in 1997) and the Southern Branch (opened in 2012 in Krasnodar).

Culturology studies at Moscow Lomonosov University

[edit]

In 1990, at the faculty of philosophy, a chair of the history and theory of world culture was created. Many prominent Soviet and Russian scholars like V. V. Ivanov, S. S. Averintsev, A. Y. Gurevich, M. L. Gasparov, G. S. Knabe, E. M. Miletinskiy, V. N. Romanov, T. V. Vasilyeva, N. V. Braginskaya, V. V. Bibikhin,Alexander Dobrokhotovhave worked there.[4]

Yuri Rozhdestvenskyfounded a school of Culturology at the Department of Language Studies ofMoscow Lomonosov University.Rozhdestvensky's approach to the development of culture (accumulation and mutual influence of layers) can be compared to the approach used inmedia ecology.[citation needed]

Other uses

[edit]

TheOxford English Dictionaryrecords usage of the word "culturology" with the meaning "[t]he science or study of culture or a culture" from 1920 onwards.[5] American anthropologistLeslie White(1900-1975) popularised the termculturologyamong contemporary Anglophonesocial scientists.[6][7][8] White defined culturology as a field of science dedicated to the study of culture andcultural systems.[9][page needed][10][citation needed]He notes that "culturology" was earlier known as "science of culture" as defined by English anthropologistEdward Burnett Tylorin his book 1872Primitive Culture.[1]White also notes that he introduced this term in 1939,[11] and that for the first time the term appeared in English dictionaries in 1954. He also remarks that the corresponding German term,Kulturwissenschaft,was introduced byWilhelm Ostwaldin 1909.[1]

Following White, philosopher of scienceMario Bunge(1919-2020) defined culturology as the sociological, economic, political, and historical study of concrete cultural systems. "Synchronic culturology" is said to coincide with theanthropology,sociology,economics,andpolitical ideologyof cultures. By contrast, "diachronic culturology" is a component ofhistory.According to Bunge, "scientific culturology" also differs from traditionalcultural studiesas the latter are often the work of idealist literary critics or pseudo-philosophers ignorant of thescientific methodand incompetent in the study of social facts and concrete social systems.[12]

Bunge's systemic and materialist approach to the study of culture has given birth to a variety of new fields of research in thesocial sciences.Fabrice Rivault,for instance, was the first scholar to formalize and propose international political culturology as a subfield ofinternational relationsin order to understand the global cultural system, as well as its numerous subsystems, and explain how cultural variables interact withpoliticsandeconomicsto impact world affairs.[13]This scientific approach differs radically fromculturalism,constructivism,and culturalpostmodernismbecause it is based onlogic,empiricism,systemism,andemergent materialism.[14]International political culturology is being studied by scholars around the world.[15][16]

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^abcLeslie A. White (21 November 1958). "Culturology".Science.New Series.128(3334): 1246.doi:10.1126/science.128.3334.1246.a.JSTOR1754562.S2CID239772878.
  2. ^Mikhail Epstein, Transcultural Experiments: Russian and American Models of Creative Communication. New York: St. Martin's Press (Scholarly and Reference Division), 1999,Chapter 1: From Culturology to Transculture
  3. ^specialtiesArchived2007-04-07 at theWayback Machine(in Russian)
  4. ^"Философский факультет".Archived fromthe originalon 2015-09-07.Retrieved2015-08-26.
  5. ^ "culturology".Oxford English Dictionary(Online ed.).Oxford University Press.(Subscription orparticipating institution membershiprequired.)
  6. ^ For example: White, Leslie A.(1949). "The expansion of the scope of science".The Science of Culture: A Study of Man and Civilization.Evergreen books, volume 105. New York: Grove Press. p. 87.Retrieved27 July2024.[...] a supra-psychological science of culture: culturology.
  7. ^ For example: White, Leslie A.(16 June 2016) [1959]. "Preface".The Evolution of Culture: The Development of Civilization to the Fall of Rome(reprint ed.). Abingdon: Routledge. p. xx.ISBN9781315418568.Retrieved27 July2024.Recently,Julian Huxleyhas presented, as a matter of course, as a thesis that does not need to be defended, the theory of evolution as being as relevant to culturology as to biology and quite as necessary to its development.
  8. ^ Compare: White, Leslie A.(1949). "Culturological vs. Psychological Interpretations of Human Behavior".The Science of Culture: A Study of Man and Civilization.Evergreen books, volume 105. New York: Grove Press. p. 121ff.Retrieved27 July2024.
  9. ^White, L. (1959).The Evolution of Culture: The Development of Civilization to the Fall of Rome.McGraw-Hill, New York.
  10. ^White, Leslie, (1975)The Concept of Cultural Systems: A Key to Understanding Tribes and Nations,Columbia University Press, New York
  11. ^ See: White, L. A.(October–December 1939)."A problem in kinship terminology".American Anthropologist.41(4). Washington, D.C.: 571.doi:10.1525/aa.1939.41.4.02a00040.hdl:2027.42/99672.Application of the viewpoint and principles of the philosophy of evolution is as essential to the solution of many problems in culturology as it is in biology or physics.
  12. ^Bunge, Mario, (1998)Social Science Under Debate,Toronto: University of Toronto Press
  13. ^"CULTUROLOGY - Definition - A Scientific Approach to the Study of Culture".culturologia.webnode.Retrieved2021-09-22.
  14. ^Bunge, Mario, (2009)Political Philosophy - Fact, Fiction and Vision,Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick
  15. ^Xintian, Yu (2005) "Cultural Factors In International Relations", Chinese Philosophical Studies.Archived2010-04-10 at theWayback Machine
  16. ^Xintian, Yu (2009), "Combining Research on Cultural Theory and International Relations"
[edit]