Rethinking Culture and Cultural Analysis

The texts in this collection are revised versions of presentations given at the Coimbra International Conference on the Semantics of Culture Why "Culture"?, held on November 24-25, 2011. Their common theme is the idea that the phenomenon of culture cannot be reduced to a substantialist vision of the diversity of manifestations of society and human beings. However, if one were to accept the concept of culture as a starting point for observing these manifestations, then it should also be adopted as a starting point for critical questioning, that is, for problematizing. The texts in this volume contribute to this philosophical problematization by pointing out - each with its own perspective of analysis - articulations of the phenomenon of culture as a theoretical object and as a thematic object.