Comparative cultural studies is a contextual approach to the study of culture in a global and intercultural context.
Focus is placed on the theory, method, and application of the study process(es) rather than on the "what" of the object(s) of study.
Overview
In comparative
cultural studies, selected tenets of
comparative literature
Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across linguistic, national, geographic, and disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role similar to that of the study ...
are merged with selected tenets of the field of
cultural studies (including
culture theories, (radical)
constructivism
Constructivism may refer to:
Art and architecture
* Constructivism (art), an early 20th-century artistic movement that extols art as a practice for social purposes
* Constructivist architecture, an architectural movement in Russia in the 1920s a ...
,
communication
Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inqui ...
theories, and
systems theories) with the objective to study culture and culture products (including but not restricted to literature, communication, media, art, etc.). This is performed in a contextual and relational construction and with a plurality of methods and approaches, interdisciplinary, and, if and when required, including teamwork. In comparative cultural studies, it is the processes of communicative action(s) in culture and the how of these processes that constitute the main objectives of research and study. However, scholarship in comparative cultural studies does not exclude
textual analysis
Content analysis is the study of documents and communication artifacts, which might be texts of various formats, pictures, audio or video. Social scientists use content analysis to examine patterns in communication in a replicable and systematic ...
proper of other established fields of study. In comparative cultural studies, ideally, the framework of and methodologies available in the systemic and empirical study of culture are favored. Scholarship in comparative cultural studies includes the theoretical, as well as methodological and applied postulate to move and to dialogue between cultures, languages, literature, and disciplines: attention to other cultures against essentialist notions and practices and beyond the paradigm of the nation-state is a basic and founding element of the framework and its application.
See also
*
Counterculture
A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Hou ...
*
Cross-cultural studies
Cross-cultural studies, sometimes called holocultural studies or comparative studies, is a specialization in anthropology and sister sciences such as sociology, psychology, economics, political science that uses field data from many societies th ...
*
Cultural anthropology
*
Cultural assimilation
Cultural assimilation is the process in which a minority group or culture comes to resemble a society's majority group or assume the values, behaviors, and beliefs of another group whether fully or partially.
The different types of cultural ass ...
*
Ethnology
Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology). ...
References
Further reading
*
*Tötösy de Zepetnek, Steven, and Tutun Mukherjee, eds. ''Companion to Comparative Literature, World Literatures, and Comparative Cultural Studies''. New Delhi: Cambridge UP India, 2013.
*Purdue University Press print monograph series of Books in Comparative Cultural Studies http://www.thepress.purdue.edu/series/comparative-cultural-studies
*
Cross-cultural studies
Comparisons
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