Cultural Anthropology

[BronzeArcher]

I am almost done a double major in socio and anthro. I focus more on the cultural/semiotics side than bio/arch.

I've read a whole bunch of social theorists and am starting to get into Marx's writing and Latin America--neoliberalism is really very interesting.

[NeilUnreal]

Semiotics is fascinating; especially in a culture like ours with rapidly changing information technologies.

If I could study any area of cultural anthropology, it would be the nexus where shamanism, mythogenesis, psychology, and semiotics all meet.

About the closest I've come was taking a seminar in Radical Constructivism under Ernst von Glasersfeld. I think constructivism offers some hints regarding this process, particulary if one frames parts of psychology as an internal dialog.

It's also interesting to me that Zen can be said to seek a shattering of this same nexus.

-Neil

[BigBen]

Glad to see you're passionate about such an important subject regarding the Bible. I myself am a psychology major at a secular school, but am more interested in Biblical culture than psychology.
Question: What has your experience been thus far at a Bible school?

[Teluog]

Glad to see you're passionate about such an important subject regarding the Bible. I myself am a psychology major at a secular school, but am more interested in Biblical culture than psychology.
Question: What has your experience been thus far at a Bible school?

I take it you are referring to me, since I'm the only one in this thread who mentioned being in Bible college. So I'll answer.

First off, my program doesn't have enough room for me to take that cultural anthropology course. There are some other courses I want to take for electives that are more important to me that I would have to sacrifice in order to make room for the CA course, such as NT Greek, which I refuse to sacrifice. Found a used CA textbook in the library for sale, and still has the CD even, and was only a dollar

Experience so far has been kinda disappointing. My fellow students don't really seem to care about learning, and the ones who do want to learn seem to want to learn only for personal interest. I might actually be the only one there who understands the importance of Bible scholarship and education. Many of the students don't read their textbooks....or their Bibles, and don't do research for their essays until the last minute. They just do the assignments to avoid failing the course. Seems more important to always be playing videogames or hanging out or watching movies. I honestly wonder my many of them are even here. You'd think that the big problem of biblical illiteracy in North America wouldn't exist at a Bible college.

The commuters, who are mostly older than the rezzies, they seem to be more mature about school. The teachers are pretty good for the most part, and the courses are good.

BTW, I just finished the section on history background in my summer, distance hermeneutics course Fun stuff.

[MarcyOne]

American "cultural anthropologists" focused on the ways people expressed their view of

themselves and their world, especially in symbolic forms (such as art and myths). These two

approaches frequently converged (kinship, for example, and leadership function both as symbolic

systems and as social institutions), and generally complemented one another. Today almost all

socio-cultural anthropologists refer to the work of both sets of predecessors, and have an equal

interest in what people do and in what people say.

[FreezBee]

Welcome to TWeb, MarcyOne

You are right that it is to be expected that symbolic systems and social institutions converge, but do you consider either to be the origin of the other?


- FreezBee