Scientific Concepts of Culture X755/X320 Fall 2004
Readings

IU E-Reserve and the local copies of articles linked below are password protected. If you are a student in the course who needs the password, you can log in at OnCourse to find the information or email me (slower). - CA

Sources

• ABU-LUGHOD 1991 "Writing Against Culture" in Recapturing Anthropology, Richard G. Fox, ed. (Santa Fe, NM School of American research Press: 1991). pages 137-162.

E-Reserve

• ASQUITH ms. "Culture, protoculture and the biosocial divide: Japanese perspectives on the study of animal society." Talk given at TAMU in 2003.

Hard copy in HPS reading room

• AUNGER 2000 Darwinizing Culture (Oxford University Press: 2000) pages 1-23.

E-Reserve

• BONNER 1980 The Evolution of Culture in Animals (Princeton University Press) pages 8-9.

class handout

• BOYD & RICHERSON 2004 Not by Genes Alone: How culture transformed human evolution.

local copy

• DAWKINS 1976/1989 "Memes: The new replicators", ch. 11 of The Selfish Gene (Oxford University Press).

public webspace copy [local copy]

• DENNETT 1990 "Memes and the Exploitation of Imagination" Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 48, 127-35.

Author's preprint [local copy]

• DENNETT 1998 "Memes: Myths, Misunderstandings and Misgivings", talk given at UNC

Author's transcript [local copy]

• DE WAAL 2001 The Ape and the Sushi Master (New York, NY Basic Books: 2001) pages 213-238.

E-Reserve

• MITHEN 1999 "Symbolism and the Supernatural" in The Evolution of Culture, Robin Dunbar, Chris Knight, and Camilla Power, eds. (New Brunswick, NJ Rutgers University Press: 1999). pages147-169.

E-Reserve

• RENDELL & WHITEHEAD 2001 "Culture in Whales and Dolphins" Behavioral and Brain Sciences 24:309-382.

Read main article (pp.309-324) plus as many commentaries as you wish, but at least these two: Miller (p. 347) and Premack & Hauser (p.351-352)

Accessible as electronic journal from IU library - enter "behavioral brain sciences" in the search box, then follow links until you reach vol.24 issue 2, p.309. [local copy]

• SPERBER 1996 Explaining Culture (Malden MA, Blackwell Publishing: 1996) pages 9-31.

E-Reserve

• WILLIAMS 1983 Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (Rev. Ed.) (New York: Oxford University Press).

Keywords: Culture from UNH [local copy]

Other useful sites

• X320 students especially may find this reading guide useful to give you some idea of how I expect you to approach the readings. Don't worry about the fact that it's written as as a guide to reading philosophy — much of the scientific reading for this course consists of scientists making philosophical arguments, although the conclusions tend not to be as strange as what goes on in pure philosophy.
• The chimpanzee cultures website.
• Suggest others!