Culturology or the science of culture is a branch of the social sciences concerned with the scientific understanding, description, analysis, and prediction of cultures as a whole. While ethnology and anthropology studied different cultural practices, such studies included diverse aspects: sociological, psychological, etc., and the need was recognized [ by whom? ] for a discipline focused exclusively on cultural aspects. [1]
The notion of culturology (Russian : культурология), as an interdisciplinary branch of the humanities, may be traced in the Soviet Union to the late 1960s and associated with the work of Mikhail Bakhtin, Aleksei Losev, Sergey Averintsev, Georgy Gachev, Juri Lotman, Vyacheslav Ivanov, Vladimir Toporov, Edward Markarian, and others. [2] This kind of research challenged Marxist socio-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 the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it was introduced into the Higher Attestation Commission's list of specialties for which scientific degrees may be awarded in Russia and is now a subject of study during the first year at institutions of higher education and in secondary schools. [3] Defined as the study of human cultures, their integral systems, and their influence on human behavior, it may be formally compared to the Western discipline of cultural studies, although it has a number of important distinctions.
Over past decades the following basic cultural schools were formed:
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).
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 Dobrokhotov have worked there. [4]
Yuri Rozhdestvensky founded a school of Culturology at the Department of Language Studies of Moscow Lomonosov University. Rozhdestvensky's approach to the development of culture (accumulation and mutual influence of layers) can be compared to the approach used in media ecology.[ citation needed ]
In Anglophone contemporary social sciences the word culturology was coined by American anthropologist Leslie White, who defined it as a field of science dedicated to the study of culture and cultural systems. [5] [6] White notices that culturology was earlier known as "science of culture" as defined by English anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor in his book 1872 Primitive Culture. [1] White also notices that he introduced this term in 1939 and for the first time the term appeared in English dictionaries in 1954. He also remarks that the corresponding German term Kulturwissenschaft was introduced by Wilhelm Ostwald in 1909. [1]
Following White, philosopher of science Mario Bunge defined culturology as the sociological, economic, political, and historical study of concrete cultural systems. "Synchronic culturology" is said to coincide with the anthropology, sociology, economics, and political ideology of cultures. By contrast, "diachronic culturology" is a component of history. According to Bunge, "scientific culturology" also differs from traditional cultural studies as the latter are often the work of idealist literary critics or pseudo-philosophers ignorant of the scientific method and incompetent in the study of social facts and concrete social systems. [7]
Bunge's systemic and materialist approach to the study of culture has given birth to a variety of new fields of research in the social sciences. Fabrice Rivault, for instance, was the first scholar to formalize and propose international political culturology as a subfield of international relations in order to understand the global cultural system, as well as its numerous subsystems, and explain how cultural variables interact with politics and economics to impact world affairs. [8] This scientific approach differs radically from culturalism, constructivism, and cultural postmodernism because it is based on logic, empiricism, systemism, and emergent materialism. [9] International political culturology is being studied by scholars around the world. [10] [11]
Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of society", established in the 18th century. In addition to sociology, it now encompasses a wide array of academic disciplines, including anthropology, archaeology, economics, human geography, linguistics, management science, communication science, psychology and political science.
Sir Edward Burnett Tylor was an English anthropologist, and professor of anthropology.
George Peter ("Pete") Murdock, also known as G. P. Murdock, was an American anthropologist who was professor at Yale University and University of Pittsburgh. He is remembered for his empirical approach to ethnological studies and his study of family and kinship structures across differing cultures. His 1967 Ethnographic Atlas dataset on more than 1,200 pre-industrial societies is influential and frequently used in social science research. He is also known for his work as an FBI informant on his fellow anthropologists during McCarthyism.
Juri Lotman was a prominent Russian-Estonian literary scholar, semiotician, and historian of Russian culture, who worked at the University of Tartu. He was elected a member of the British Academy (1977), Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters (1987), Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (1989) and Estonian Academy of Sciences (1990). He was a founder of the Tartu–Moscow Semiotic School. The number of his printed works exceeds 800 titles. His archive which includes his correspondence with a number of Russian and Western intellectuals, is immense.
The sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) is the study of science as a social activity, especially dealing with "the social conditions and effects of science, and with the social structures and processes of scientific activity." The sociology of scientific ignorance (SSI) is complementary to the sociology of scientific knowledge. For comparison, the sociology of knowledge studies the impact of human knowledge and the prevailing ideas on societies and relations between knowledge and the social context within which it arises.
Vyacheslav Vsevolodovich Ivanov was a prominent Soviet/Russian philologist, semiotician and Indo-Europeanist probably best known for his glottalic theory of Indo-European consonantism and for placing the Indo-European urheimat in the area of the Armenian Highlands and Lake Urmia.
The sociology of law, legal sociology, or law and society is often described as a sub-discipline of sociology or an interdisciplinary approach within legal studies. Some see sociology of law as belonging "necessarily" to the field of sociology, but others tend to consider it a field of research caught up between the disciplines of law and sociology. Still others regard it as neither a subdiscipline of sociology nor a branch of legal studies but as a field of research on its own right within the broader social science tradition. Accordingly, it may be described without reference to mainstream sociology as "the systematic, theoretically grounded, empirical study of law as a set of social practices or as an aspect or field of social experience". It has been seen as treating law and justice as fundamental institutions of the basic structure of society mediating "between political and economic interests, between culture and the normative order of society, establishing and maintaining interdependence, and constituting themselves as sources of consensus, coercion and social control".
Itamar Even-Zohar is an Israeli culture researcher and professor at Tel Aviv University. Even-Zohar is a pioneer of polysystem theory and the theory of cultural repertoires.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to anthropology:
Ethnozoology is a field of study that explores the complex relationships between humans and animals in their environment. This discipline encompasses the classification and naming of various animal species, as well as the cultural knowledge and use of both wild and domesticated animals. Ethnozoology is a subdiscipline of ethnobiology, which also includes ethnobotany, the study of human-plant relationships. However, unlike ethnobotany, ethnozoology focuses specifically on human-animal relationships and the knowledge that humans have acquired about the animals in their surroundings.
Sociology is the study of human society that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. Regarded as a part of both the social sciences and humanities, sociology uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about social order and social change. Sociological subject matter ranges from micro-level analyses of individual interaction and agency to macro-level analyses of social systems and social structure. Applied sociological research may be applied directly to social policy and welfare, whereas theoretical approaches may focus on the understanding of social processes and phenomenological method.
Culture is a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups. Culture is often originated from or attributed to a specific region or location.
The Tartu–Moscow Semiotic School is a scientific school of thought in the field of semiotics that was formed in 1964 and led by Juri Lotman. Among the other members of this school were Boris Uspensky, Vyacheslav Ivanov, Vladimir Toporov, Mikhail Gasparov, Alexander Piatigorsky, Isaak I. Revzin, and others. As a result of their collective work, they established a theoretical framework around the semiotics of culture.
Social anthropology is the study of patterns of behaviour in human societies and cultures. It is the dominant constituent of anthropology throughout the United Kingdom and much of Europe, where it is distinguished from cultural anthropology. In the United States, social anthropology is commonly subsumed within cultural anthropology or sociocultural anthropology.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to semiotics:
Fuad Mamedov Teyub oglu is a professor of culturology and Chair of the History Department at the Academy of Public Administration (Azerbaijan). He is the founder of Culturology in Azerbaijan and also the President of the Cultural Association Simurgh.
Pavel (Vasil'evich) Romanov was a Russian sociologist, Doctor of Social Sciences, the professor of the HSE department of socio-economic systems and social politics; the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Social Policy Studies; the director of the Center for Social Policy and Gender Studies. He was one of the most authoritative Russian researchers whose topics include Sociology of organizations, social politics, sociology of professions and Ethnographic method in Sociology.
Cultural evolution is an evolutionary theory of social change. It follows from the definition of culture as "information capable of affecting individuals' behavior that they acquire from other members of their species through teaching, imitation and other forms of social transmission". Cultural evolution is the change of this information over time.
Alexander Lvovich Dobrokhotov is a Russian philosopher, historian of philosophy, historian of culture, and university professor. He specialises in the history of Russian culture, history of philosophy, metaphysics, Russian philosophy, ancient and medieval philosophy, Kant and German Idealism, and philosophy of culture.
Huang Wenshan was a Chinese scholar of cultural studies, sociology, anthropology and ethnology.