Concepts of Culture

Art, Politics, and Society

Edited by Adam Muller
Contributions by Christoph Brumann, Geoffrey Hartman, Jacques Barzun, Mette Hjort, Imre Szeman, David Novitz, Robert Stecker, Martin Roberts, Jim Parry, Martha Nussbaum, Rhonda Martens, and Carl Matheson
Categories: Regional & Cultural Studies, Social Sciences, Anthropology
Publisher: University of Calgary Press
Paperback : 9781552381670, 424 pages, December 2005
Ebook (PDF) : 9781552383179, 424 pages, December 2005

Table of contents

 

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Unity in Diversity
Adam Muller

Writing for Culture: Why a Successful Concept Should Not Be Discarded
Christoph Brumann

Culture and the Abstract Life
Geoffrey Hartmann

The Tenth Muse
Jacques Barzun

Between Conflict and Consensus: Redux
Mette Hjort

Culture and/in Globalization
Imre Szeman

Art, Culture, and Identity
David Novitz

Aesthetics and Culture
Robert Stecker

Film Culture
Martin Roberts

Sport, Universals, and Multiculturalism
Jim Parry

In Defense of Universal Values
Martha Nussbaum

Incommensurability Pragmatized
Rhonda Martens and Carl Matheson

Bibliography
Index

Description

How do we define "culture?" To what uses should such a concept be put? What costs and benefits do these uses entail? In this volume, Adam Muller brings together contributions from a diverse group of established and emerging scholars each of whom probes the nature of the culture concept while shedding light on its many different applications and contexts of use. Of particular concern to Muller and his contributors is the putative unity of culture, a notion variously affirmed and denied in this volume over the course of discussions of such matters as popular culture, film, globalization, education, sport, aesthetics, and human values. The variety of perspectives gathered here, in addition to adding much needed substance to our understanding of the history and politics of "culture," taken together confirm the practical advantages to the sort of rigorous and dynamic interdisciplinarity ever more a part of academic life. Concepts of Culture: Art, Politics, and Society also helps to secure a place for analytic philosophy, humanism, and liberal political theory in contemporary debates over what exactly "culture" is and how it works.

Contributors include such distinguished scholars as Jacques Barzun, Geoffrey Hartman, Mette Hjort, and Martha Nussbaum.

With Contributions By:
Jacques Barzun
Christoph Brumann
Geoffrey Hartman
Mette Hjort
Rhonda Martens
Carl Matheson
Adam Muller
David Novitz
Martha Nussbaum
Jim Parry
Martin Roberts
Robert Stecker
Imre Szeman