The document discusses various topics relating to culture, including questions of culture, differentiating between culture with a capital C and small c, and the concept of Leavisism. It addresses the ideas of Raymond Williams and F.R. Leavis and how they viewed culture. Different definitions of culture are presented and the document examines ordinary culture and the anthropological approach to defining culture. Tasks are assigned relating to various cultural concepts discussed.

2. Chapter 2: Questions of Culture and
Ideology
 Raymond William (1921-88) Read page 45
 H.w Write biography of Raymond William.

3. Chapter 2 Questions of Culture
Page 44
 Objectives:
 What are the questions of culture?
 Differentiate culture with small “c” and capital “C”.
 What is Leavisism?

4. Critical Thinking: Read the following definition care then
write some questions about.
1. the ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or society.
2. a particular society that has its own beliefs, ways of life, art, etc.
3. a way of thinking, behaving, or working that exists in a place or organization
(such as a business).
4. The way of life we pass.
5. A whole way of life.

5. Some Questions of culture.
 1. There is no correct or definitive meaning of culture.
 What is culture?
 Different meanings of culture by sociology, anthropology and literature.

6. Way of Life. What do you think?
 Past Present Future

7. Task: List at least 4 early and modern
human’s activities.
Early Human Activities
 1.
 2
 3
 4
Modern Human Activities
 1
 2
 3
 4

8. Task: Compare human’s activities with
given culture’s definition then answer
the following Question.
 Do you think definition is appropriate
for present, past and future? Why?
 Answer in Your Notebook
Definition : the ideas, customs,
and social behaviour of a particular
people or society.

9. Culture can be separated into general categories:
“Capital C" High culture and “small c" culture. (Low
culture)
C
Task : Write some high culture’s
examples.
c
 Task: Write some low culture’s
examples.
So Culture with Capital “C” is the popular culture.

10. Reading: Read the paragraphs on page 45 then
highlight different concepts about culture.
 Task: Draw this table in your notebook then write the concepts of each writer
in front of his name.
Writer’s Name Concepts
Raymond Williams
Matthew Arnold

11. What is leavisism?
 A form of literary (written) studies named after F. R. Leavis. FRANK
RAYMOND LEAVIS. Leavis was greatly influenced by Matthew Arnold and
they share the idea( notion) that culture is the high point in civilization
and concern of an education minority.
 (civilization ) the stage of human social development.
 (Minority) the smaller part or number
0
2
4
6
Minority
Math
Science
Culture

12. F.R LEAVIS ARGUED THAT PRIOR INDUSTRIAL
REVOLUTION IN (ENGLAND)
Common culture
 The characteristics common to the
members of a particular group or
society.
 Example. UAE (Arabian Culture)
Minority culture
 Minority, a culturally, ethnically,
or racially distinct group that
coexists with but is subordinate to
a more dominant group.
 Example. UAE (Indian Culture)

13. Task: Write some common and minority
cultural activities in UAE.
Common culture
 1
 2
 3
 4
Minority culture
 1
 2
 3
 4

14. Reading: Read the paragraph on page 46 then
highlight the Leavisism’s important tasks.
 Tasks are.
 1. to define and defend the best of culture represented by the canon of good
works;
 2. to criticize the worst of mass culture represented by advertising, films and
popular fiction.

15. Ordinary Culture
 Culture is ordinary; that is the first fact. Every human society has its own shape,
its own purposes, its own meanings. Every human society expresses these, in
institutions, and in arts and learning. The making of a society is the finding of
common meanings and directions, and its growth is an active debate and
amendment, under the pressures of experience, contact, and discovery, writing
themselves into the land. The growing society is there, yet it is also made and
remade in every individual mind. The making of a mind is, first, the slow learning of
shapes, purposes, and meanings, so that work, observation, and communication
are possible. Then, second, but equal in importance, is the testing of these in
experience, the making of new observations, comparisons, and meanings. A
culture has two aspects: the known meanings and directions, which its members are
trained to; the new observations and meanings, which are offered and tested. These
are the ordinary processes of human societies and human minds, and we see
through them the nature of a culture: that it is always both traditional and
creative; that it is both the most ordinary common meanings and the finest individual
meanings. We use the word culture in these two senses: to mean a whole way of life
— the common meanings; to mean the arts and learning — the special processes of
discovery and creative effort. Some writers reserve the word for one or other of
these senses; I insist on both, and on the significance of their conjunction. The
questions I ask about our culture are questions about our general and common
purposes, yet also questions about deep personal meanings. Culture is ordinary, in
every society and in every mind.

16. Ordinary (Common) Culture
 Art, Place, Heritage
 Ordinary Culture develops art and heritage projects with organizations and
communities, working in settings where art might not usually be presented or
where heritage has not been investigated before.
 Ordinary Culture: Usual practices of daily life or common practices.

17. Exercise
 Q. Why is meaning central to the concept of culture?
 Ans: Because the concept of culture is a tool that is of more or less usefulness to
us. Its usage and meanings continue to change as thinkers have hoped to do
different things with it.
 Q. In What way culture can be consider an ordinary?
 Ans: The ordinary process of human societies and human minds, and we see
through them the nature of culture.
 Q. What are the connections between culture and communication?
 Ans: It brings understanding to communication through a common background of
shared experiences and histories.
 Q. By what methods do we construct meaning?
 Ans: By two aspects 1: The known meanings and directions
 2: The new observations and meaning.

18. The Anthropological approach to culture
 Anthropology: the study of human beings and their ancestors through time
and space and in relation to physical character, environmental and social
relations, and culture.
 One of the earliest articulations of the anthropological meaning of the term
"culture" came from Sir Edward Tylor who writes on the first page of his 1897
book: "Culture, or civilization, taken in its broad, ethnographic sense, is
that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law,
custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a
member of society
 Banality- Not original
 Pragmatic- based on practical
 Legitimize-conforming to the law or to rules

19. Tasks: Open answers
 Have you ever eavesdropped (secretly listen to a conversation) on a
conversation on a train, or “lurked” (remain hidden) online?
 Do you think either of these activities constitute a form of anthropology?
 How would you feel if you were being studied by an expert who was
researching the lives of 21st century university students?
 What advice would you give them about how best to study the culture of you
and your friends?

20. Fast food
 The anthropologist Levi-Strauss once said that ‘ food is good to think by (See
chapter 1) Page 19.
Q1: What do you think he meant by that?

21. Answering Questions
 He meant that the food is signifier of symbolic meanings and the
circumstances of their eating and their attached to them.
 Example. Circumstances (condition)are attached with fast food.
Food has symbolic importance as well as circumstances of their
eating.

22. Answering Questions
 Q2: What culture(s) do we associate with this type of food?
 What does it tell us about the lifestyles and values of this culture?
 …………………………………the traditional family dinner is increasingly being
replaced by the consumption of takeaway, or eating "on the run".

23. Page 49
 Watch the video than answer the question.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgDeeMfh3HY

24. Case Study (Page 49)
 Read the Question then answer.

25. Answer
 Cooking at home has become less of a choice and more of a chore. With the
large amount of ready meals available, the option of spending time in the
kitchen becomes less and less appealing. People are spending more of their
time and money in the world of fast foods and restaurants.

26. Culturalism: Hoggart, Thompson,
Williams
 1.