30240
Advanced Seminar
WiSe 18/19: Sociology of Culture and Cognition
Christian von Scheve
Comments
Whereas the Sociology of Culture is often conceived of as the sociological investigation of discretely cultural objects and practices, the more recent field of Cultural Sociology rests on the (more) fundamental assumption that every form of ‘being’, of human behavior and of purposeful social action is tied to collective patterns of meaning-making. In this view, almost any social process and phenomenon is to some extent ‘cultural’. Cultural meanings emerge from and become manifest in language, values, norms, identities, and memories, to name but a few. Importantly, these meanings are closely linked to social structure and patterns of social organization and inequality, such as nation states, institutions, groups, or social classes. There is a broad variety of theoretical and methodological approaches to conceptualize and empirically investigate these meanings, for instance by looking at practices and behaviors, discourse, or subjective experience. Recent approaches, known as “culture and cognition” or “cognitive sociology”, have started to capitalize on the socially shared cognitive and affective structures to better understand the process of meaning-making. These structures include both, representational and propositional as well as embodied forms of meaning. In this seminar, students will learn about general approaches in Cultural Sociology and the place of cognition – broadly understood – in this field. More specifically, we will review and discuss (a) different sociological theories and conceptualizations of cognition, (b) how cognition is linked to a range of social phenomena, such as values, memory, and identity, and (c) how patterns of cultural meaning are associated with patterns of social organization and differentiation, in particular social classes, groups, and milieus. close
16 Class schedule
Regular appointments
Tue, 2018-10-16 16:00 - 18:00
Tue, 2018-10-23 16:00 - 18:00
Tue, 2018-10-30 16:00 - 18:00
Tue, 2018-11-06 16:00 - 18:00
Tue, 2018-11-13 16:00 - 18:00
Tue, 2018-11-20 16:00 - 18:00
Tue, 2018-11-27 16:00 - 18:00
Tue, 2018-12-04 16:00 - 18:00
Tue, 2018-12-11 16:00 - 18:00
Tue, 2018-12-18 16:00 - 18:00
Tue, 2019-01-08 16:00 - 18:00
Tue, 2019-01-15 16:00 - 18:00
Tue, 2019-01-22 16:00 - 18:00
Tue, 2019-01-29 16:00 - 18:00
Tue, 2019-02-05 16:00 - 18:00
Tue, 2019-02-12 16:00 - 18:00