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COMPARATIVE CULTURAL STUDIES

Sociologyindex, Sociology Books 2011, Cultural Studies

Comparative cultural studies is a new field of study where the notion of comparative is merged with the field of cultural studies from the basic premises of the discipline of comparative literature, meaning that the study of culture and culture products -- including but not restricted to literature, communication, media, art, etc. -- is performed in a contextual and relational construction and with a plurality of methods and approaches, inter- and multi-disciplinarity, and, if and when required, including team work. - Totosy de Zepetnek, Steven. "From Comparative Literature Today toward Comparative Cultural Studies." CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 1.3 (1999):

In comparative cultural studies it is the processes of communicative action(s) in culture and the how of these processes that constitute the main objectives of research and study. However, comparative cultural studies does not exclude textual analysis proper or other established fields of study.

In comparative cultural studies, ideally, the framework of and methodologies available in the systemic and empirical study of culture are favoured.

The Institute for Comparative Cultural Studies (Ningbo) is the Chinese branch of The Institute for Comparative Cultural Studies (Nottingham). The Institute for Comparative Cultural Studies (Ningbo), currently headed by Dr. Paul Gladston, was launched in November 2005, shortly after the new campus of the University of Nottingham Ningbo, China was formally opened.
The aim of the Institute for Comparative Cultural Studies Ningbo is to develop a broad-base for inter-disciplinary research in the area of comparative cultural studies. This ranges from individual research projects on cultural interaction and exchange in areas including literature, the visual arts and film, to major conferences on the relationship between culture and institutions such as the media. While The Institute for Comparative Cultural Studies Ningbo is intended as an extension of The Institute for Comparative Cultural Studies (Nottingham), it also aims to develop its own Asia-specific research agenda by promoting large-scale co-operation in research, postgraduate teaching, international conferences and resource development.

Contemporary Comparative Cultural Studies: Theory, Contexts and Trends
Rik Pinxten - krepublishers.com
INTRODUCTION
For three decades cultural anthropology has been living through an intense self-critical debate: almost all concepts (including that of culture: Pinxten et al., 2004), methods (Fabian, 1983) and political perspectives have been scrutinized thoroughly. In that intriguing process, anthropology has branched out to or made alliances with other, often new disciplines: like post-colonial studies, cultural studies, multicultural studies and the like. Critiques on orientalism by Said (1978) and on exoticism and lack of interest for the urbanised world (e.g. Appadurai, 1989) have been taken seriously. Finally, the sole focus on ethnography with its danger of slipping into casuistic was countered by an appeal to develop a ‘comparative consciousness’ (Nader, 1993).

With this picture in mind we like to offer a few thoughts on the possible development of anthropology in our era. In our view, anthropology should be understood then as ‘comparative study of cultures’: that is to say, it should be studying cultures and it must go for comparison.
It is impossible to give an overview in the genuine sense (see the yearbooks ‘Annual Reviews in Anthropology’); rather, some important trends will be highlighted.

"Following the postulates of comparative cultural studies acts and processes of production, distribution, reception, and transference of cultural objects form the symbolic structure(s) of cultural phenomena which, in turn, are with impact of social (and economic) relevance. As all communicative acts, productions of art are made-up of and between interrelations among processes and participants. In turn, concepts in scholarship such as intertextuality, dialogics, comparative literature, cultural studies, comparative cultural studies, etc., describe some of the said processes taking place. In the age of digital media, the focus of argumentation has shifted to the intermedial relations between various productions of art and media as to their location of distribution, knowledge transfer, and interactive modus operandi, and an important move has been the acknowledgement that cultural performances and processes have a material substratum dependent on their mediating formats. Within the discipline of comparative cultural studies, as well as in other theoretical and applied frameworks in the humanities and social sciences, intermediality and multimodality represent innovative concepts and practices". - Totosy de Zepetnek, Steven. "From Comparative Literature Today toward Comparative Cultural Studies." CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 1.3 (1999). <http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol1/iss3/2>.

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