Review Questions I

Question 1

What is culture?

Answer 1

process concerned with the production and exchange of meanings between people in a group/society
-It isn’t really a set of things but shared meanings, processes and practices

Question 2

What are the two types of culture?

Answer 2

High Culture: classical pieces of work for the upperclass/elite
Pop Culture: “Culture of the majority” consumed for leisure and accessible to most (pop music, art etc)

Question 3

Give an example of how cultural systems of representation shape our understanding and experience the body

Answer 3

Victorian Era: Middle and Upper class women's bodies were made meaningful via viteology. Women had minimum energy and it must be directed towards child rearing
(But this supported eugenics)

Question 4

Give an example through which the body is a site of political struggle through which people have different investments

Answer 4

Pro-Life (religous views) vs Stem Cell Researchers (Scientific Community)
- Which politicians support which cause may dictate their policies/views

Question 5

As the body becomes a source of power in late modernity what are 3 themes that become present?

Answer 5

• Site of control
• A market for consumer culture
• Modern disciplinary power

Question 6

So whats culture again?

Answer 6

Production and exchange of meanings/processes

Question 7

What might be considered cultural text (4)

Answer 7

Speech, Written material, Visual images, Material objects

Question 8

What is “semiotics”

Answer 8

• Reading an object/person/thing for meaning

- studies how meaning is constructed through signs and symbols

Question 9

What are the two levels of semiotics?

Answer 9

Denotative and Connotative

Question 10

Denotative analysis is straight up description of what you are reading but what is connotative analysis?

Answer 10

Involves the interpretation of the text in regards to broader cultural themes
-Goal is to understand the meanings reproduced through bodies