How do we look at culture?

Verstehen
Hermeneutic interpretation
Sociologocial Imagination

First, Culture

The system of shared beliefs, values, customs,

behaviors, and artifacts that the members of society
use to cope with their world and with one another,
and that are transmitted from generation to
generation through learning

First, Culture

There are layers of culture, also known as subcultures, many times divided along ethnic lines
All cultures share some characteristics, for example,
all have definitions of good and bad, all have
some kind of artistic expression, all have a language,
games or jokes.

Second, society

Culture can be invisible (such as ethics, morals,

expectations of sexuality) or observable (such as art,
language, clothing)
Society is the people who do or make the
culture; biologically speaking, the organisms.

For this class, the society is the people who

live in the United States.

For further reading

For more information on culture, visit this website

http://anthro.palomar.edu/culture/culture_1.htm

Three key terms to study culture

Verstehen

Hermeneutic Interpretation

Sociological Imagination

Verstehen

Originally coined by Max Weber (he was a very

famous German sociologist)
Translated to mean understand or interpret
BUT different from Verstand, which means
intellectual understanding (in German)
Does not refer to understanding a concept, rather, an
experience or interaction.

Verstehen

To practice Verstehen, one needs to remove or

suspend one's own values and judgments.
Understanding is temporal, it exists at one moment
in time.

Hermeneutic Interpretation

Hermeneutics were originally applied to texts to try

to determine the author's intent.

Originally used in Biblical interpretation,

started to gain popularity in the 1600s and
continued until today

Used in sociology to study interactions and

experiences of people (e.g., ethnographies)

Sociological Imagination

Put yourself in their shoes

the vivid awareness of the relationship between
experience and the wider society. (C. Wright Mills)
The ability to see how society and individuals
influence and interact with each other.

Sociological Imagination

Read the Example of Applying the Sociological

Imagination