Quiz 6 Flashcards
Visual Culture
Material artifacts, buildings and images, etc.
Multidisciplinary in nature
Many academic disciplines are integrated in the study of visual culture
Culture
Frequently juxtaposed against nature. What humans have done or added to nature by their inventiveness and labor.
Base
Material resources, means of production the economy.
Superstructure
“Spiritual” phenomena: ideology, art, religion, science and philosophy.
Ideology
Shared set of societal values and beliefs
Hegemony
Dominant ideologies are always in flux
Civilization
Culture synonym with broader and evaluative connotations.
Freud
Civilization requires repression of certain instincts and desires
Traditional levels of culture
High, middle-brow, and low.
High-Culture
Royalty, aristocracy, upper middle class
Middle-brow
Bourgeoisie or middle class & lower middle class (petit bourgeoisie)
Lower culture
Proletariat or working class & underclass (lumpenproletariat)
Kitsch
Visual artifacts judges to have little or no aesthetic value
Camp
Recodes kitsch as valuable, sees value through its status in invoking class standards of bad taste - “connoisseur of kitsch”
Connoisseur
Master of “taste” - rules of subculture
Cultural Capital
Pierre Bourdieu(like money)
Folk Culture
Rural societies (in decline)
Mass culture
Modernity, industrialization & mass communication
Mass
Made by professional designers and artists
Popular
Made by common people for masses
Anthro/Socio methodology
Participant observation
Pluralist culture
many cultures; a flexible, dynamic process
Trans- or cross-cultural
Looking for commonalities
Intercultural
ways cultures interact
Cultures in conflict
cultures destroyed, undermined or transformed by violent or other means.
Culture & Barbarism
Cost of culture often exploitation; critics often wary of “celebratory” approach to history and criticism
Multiculturalism
Need to incorporate values and ideas which do not reflect merely the dominant group ideology; dangers of tokenisms.
