Today’s culture
For this assignment, which supports your final project, you should place yourself in the role of a researcher of human cultures, an anthropologist who is looking from the future back into our world today.
Conduct a thorough analysis of today’s culture via a cultural work, seeking to understand how it represents culture and how it reflects its cultural environment. The work you select here will be used for your analysis in the project
Prompt
Select a cultural work from the world around you, one with cultural or historical interest, and briefly describe it in your submission.
This cultural work should meet the following conditions:
- It can take any form and be from any physical modality (visual, aural, tactile, and so on).
- It should be a form of expression that you might encounter any day, which intrigues you and makes you want to know more about it.
- It must be a specific work; for example, instead of choosing the American flag, you might elect to analyze the flag at the capitol building in Washington, DC.
- It should be artificial in nature, with aesthetic design elements.
After choosing a cultural work to evaluate, answer the following questions:
- What characteristics or elements of the work stand out to you?
- What do you think the creator intended to express?
- Were they successful?
Next, select a cultural work that meets the conditions above but is from a culture unfamiliar to you. Reflect on the value or meaning of studying cultural works from different cultures.
Evaluate the impact of diversity in the study of the humanities by considering the following:
- How does looking through the lens of the humanities affect your understanding of diverse cultural works and the reasons for their creation?
- How could learning more about cultural works from other cultures equip you with skills or new perspectives for experiences in your life (work, community, family, and so on)?
