Culture Theory
Essays on Mind, Self and Emotion

This book examines the role of symbols and meaning in the development of mind, self, and emotion in culture.

Richard A. Shweder (Edited by), Robert A. LeVine (Edited by)

9780521318310, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 28 December 1984

372 pages, 3 b/w illus. 3 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm, 0.55 kg

The relationship between everyday experience and culture - seen as a set of ideas, values, or symbolic codes - has challenged social scientists and especially anthropologists, for more than a century. As a comprehensive and critical account of knowledge and research in the field of culture theory, leading social scientists explore the implications for understanding different aspects of subjective experience, social practice, and individual behavior. The focus of the volume is on the role of symbols and meaning in the development of mind, self, and emotion. They examine the content of culture and how it interacts with cognitive, social, and emotional growth; how ideas relate to attitudes, feelings, and behavior; how concepts and meanings are historically transmitted. They also explore methodological and conceptual problems involved in the definition and study of meaning, and revisit the perennial problem of 'relativism' in light of topical advances in semantic analysis and in culture theory. This book will appeal to an interdisciplinary audience of anthropologists, psychologists, philosophers, historians, and linguists, as well as those interested in hermeneutics and a science of subjectivity.

Preview: a colloquy of culture theorists Richard A. Shweder
Part I. Culture Theory: An Introduction
1. Anthropology's romantic rebellion against the enlightenment, or there's more to thinking than reason and evidence Richard A. Shweder
2. Properties of culture: an ethnographic view Robert A. LeVine
3. Cultural meaning systems Roy G. D'Andrade
Part II. Culture, Self, and Emotion: 4. 'From the native's point of view: on the nature of anthropological understanding Clifford Geertz
5. Toward an anthropology of self and feeling Michelle Z. Rosaldo
6. Does the concept of the person vary cross-culturally? Richard A. Shweder and Edmund J. Bourne
7. Understanding people Zeno Vendler
8. Emotion, knowing and culture Robert I. Levy
9. Getting angry: the Jamesian theory of emotion in anthropology Robert C. Solomon
Part III. Culture, Language, and Thought: 10. The development of competence in culturally defined domains: a preliminary framework Howard Gardner
11. Language acquisition and socialization: three developmental stories and their implications Elinor Ochs and Bambi B. Schieffelin
Part IV. Commentary: 12. Some reflections on cultural determinism and relativism with special reference to emotion and reason Melford E. Spiro
Name index
Subject index.

Subject Areas: Cultural studies [JFC]