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Sociology of Culture Review Sheet for Exam 2 (Nov. 7)

Sociology of Culture

Prof. Gabe Ignatow

 

Review Sheet for Mid-term Exam II:

Weber on Islam, Neo-Weberians, Cultural Anthropology

(November 7 in class)

 

The format of the 2nd mid-term exam will be similar to that of the first mid-term.

 The exam will cover the following readings:

 Bryan Turner, Islam, Capitalism and the Weber Theses (email)

  1. Samuel Huntington, Cultures Count  and   Lawrence Harrison, Why Culture Matters (handout)
  2. Ruth Benedict, “The Diversity of Cultures” (Spillman)
  3. Clifford Geertz, Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture (Spillman)
  4. Richard Shweder, Moral Maps, "First World" Conceits, and the New Evangelists (email)
  5. Philip Smith, 9-13, 74-96 (Smith)
  6. Film: "Warriors of the Amazon"
  7. Emile Durkheim, from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (email)
  8. Lynn Hunt, "Hercules and the Radical Image in the French Revolution" (email)
  9. Jeffrey Alexander and Philip Smith, "The Discourse of American Civil Society" (email)

 

You should be able to define and discuss all of the following terms (this list is not exhaustive):

 

Bryan Turner

Islamic asceticism

Sufi mystics

“Sultanism”

 

Neo-Weberians

“Clash of Civilizations”

Colonialism

Neo-colonialism

Economic dependency

equality

civility

individualism

time orientation

religious outlook

optimism versus pessimism

trust and social capital

rationality

 

Synchronic cultural analysis

Diachronic cultural analysis

Culture as text

Cultural Functionalism

Indigenous cultures

Cultural destruction

Cultural Relativism

Culture and personality

“national character”

The Chrysanthemum and the Sword

“thick description”

“thin description”

Recurring themes

Symbolism

Ethnography

United Nations Declaration of Human Rights

 

The yanomami

The sacred

The profane

Ritual

Totems

Collective effervescence

American civil religion

Robert Bellah

Democratic code

Counter-democratic code

 

 

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