The continent Africa was the birthplace of the hominin subfamily and the genus Homo, including eight species, of which only Homo sapiens survive. Human culture in Africa is as old as the human race, and includes Neolithic (10,000 BC) rock engravings, the glacial age petroglyphs (a carving or line drawing on rock, especially one made by prehistoric people) of early hunter-gatherers in the dry grasslands of North Africa, the Nomes of Egypt (3100 BC), and ancient Egypt.

Africa Focus brings together, in digital form, two categories of primary and secondary resources: research and teaching materials collected by University of Wisconsin faculty and staff; and unique or valuable items related to these fields held by the University of Wisconsin Libraries. This collection contains more than 3000 slides, 500 photographs, 50 hours of sounds from forty-five different countires, as well as a large number of difficult to find texts that librarians, scholars, and other subject specialists have deemed important to these fields of study. It is hoped that the search features of the collection will be a convenient aid to scholarship, study, and teaching of these disciplines.<more>

Materials in the Collection:

• Africa Focus: Image and Audio Collection

• Africans in Bondage: Studies in Slavery and the Slave Trade

• Barbot’s West African Vocabularies of ca. 1680

• Brief Treatise on the Rivers of Guinea

• Ethiopia Minor and a geographical account of the Province of Sierra Leone (ca. 1615)

• A Guide to Original Sources for Precolonial Western Africa Published in European Languages

• Jesuit Documents on the Guinea of Cape Verde and the Cape Verde Islands, 1585-1617

• Raw, Medium, Well Done

Related materials:

• African Art: Aesthetics and Meaning from the Bayly Art Museum of the University of Virginia

• African Heritage Architecture

• African Studies Program – University of Wisconsin-Madison

• Dogon-Lobi Photo Album <!–

• Ethiopia: Traditions of Creativity

as of 9.2.05 the link is invalid –>

• East Asian Collection

• Foreign Relations of the United States <!–

• Mande Studies Association

AS OF 8.22.05 THE SITE IS INACTIVE–>

• Multimedia Archives from African Studies at the University of Pennsylvania

• Posters from the Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies at Northwestern University

• SouthEast Asian Images & Texts

• Yoruba and Akan Art at the Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences, Peoria, Illinois

The culture of Europe might better be described as a series of overlapping cultures. Whether it is a question of West as opposed to East; Catholicism and Protestantism as opposed to Eastern Orthodoxy; Christianity as opposed to Islam; many have claimed to identify cultural fault lines across the continent. There are many cultural innovations and movements, often at odds with each other, such as Christian proselytism or Humanism. Thus the question of “common culture” or “common values” is far more complex than it seems.

The European Capital of Culture

The European Capital of Culture is a city designated by the European Union for a period of one year during which it is given a chance to showcase its cultural life and cultural development. A number of European cities have used the City of Culture year to transform their cultural base and, in doing so, the way in which they are viewed internationally.

The Greater Region of Saarland-Lorraine-Luxembourg -Rhineland-Palatinate-Walloon Region-French Community of Belgium- and German-speaking Community of Belgium has not found a specific shortcut yet. ^[1] It is not identical with the Euregio, being in the same territory.

It is situated between the Rhine, Moselle, Saar and Meuse rivers, has an overall area of 65,401 km². Its population counts 11.2 million inhabitants, representing 2.5% of the total population of the 27-state European Union, and accounting for the same proportion of the EU GDP.

The Greater Region, is divided between Romance- and Germanic languages and also forms the hub for the Transport in Europe. It has an urban, rural (Ardennes-Eifel-Rheinhessen) and industrial fabric which is the source of rich and on-going economic and cultural relations.

Global influence

European culture also has a broad influence beyond the continent of Europe due to the legacy of colonialism. In this broader sense it is sometimes referred to as Western Civilization. Nearly all of the Americas were ruled by European powers at one time or another, and some parts of the New World, such as French Guiana, still are. The vast majority of the population of the Americas speak European languages, specifically Spanish, English, Portuguese, French and to a much lesser extent Dutch. Additionally the cultures of the European colonial powers (Spain, Britain, the Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium and France) exert a strong influence.

The legacy has spread European culture elsewhere in the world. Europe profoundly influenced on the cultures of Africa, India, Australia, and other places colonised or settled by Europeans.

* Cultural policies of the European Union

Cultural cooperation in the European Union has become a community competency since its inclusion in 1992 in the Maastricht Treaty.

Actions taken in the cultural area by the European Union include:

• The Culture 2000 7-year programme.

• The European Capital of Culture programme.

• The European Cultural Month event

• The Media Plus programme.

• Experimental actions and the awarding of various grants.

The European Union gave grants to 233 cultural projects in 2004.

The European Union has also launched a webportal dedicated to Europe and Culture, responding to the European Council‘s expressed desire to see the Commission and the member states “promote the networking of cultural information to enable all citizens to access European cultural content by the most advanced technological means.”

Culture 2000 is a 7-year European Union program, which had among its key objectives preserving and enhancing Europe’s cultural heritage. Its duration was between 2000 and 2006, and it had a budget of €236.5 million.

Culture 2000 provided grants to cultural cooperation projects in all artistic and cultural fields (performing arts, plastic and visual arts, literature, heritage, cultural history, etc.).

The objective of Culture 2000 was to promote a common cultural area characterised by its cultural diversity and shared cultural heritage. Its stated aims were to encourage creativity and mobility of artists, public access to culture, the dissemination of art and culture, inter-cultural dialogue and knowledge of the history and cultural heritage of the peoples of Europe.

The program contributed to the financing of European Community co-operations in all artistic fields: performing arts, visual arts, literature, music, history and cultural heritage, etc. Equipped with €240 million over the period 2000-2006, this program aimed to develop the cultural diversity of the European Union, the creativity and the exchange between European cultural actors, whilst making culture more accessible to a larger public. Financial support was granted to projects which were selected on the basis of an annual Call for Proposals.

   

CULTURE. In its most basic sense, culture is that portion or aspect of thought and behavior that is learned and capable of being taught to others. Culture includes customs and worldviews that provide a mental model of reality and a guide for appropriate and moral action. Languages are cultural in that they are learned symbolic information sets and are one of the most important means of encoding ideas and knowledge for memory and communication. All religions are cultural and all forms of spirituality exist within broader traditions or cultures.

Culture becomes widely communicated and shared in social groups, and it serves as a foundation for general agreement and common acceptance of certain principles and perceptions as valid, normal, and natural. In this way, the influences on culture are often masked and it is not automatically apparent that one’s own views and beliefs are not simply accurate apprehensions of reality, but are, in fact, artificial and, to a degree, arbitrary. Because of this characteristic, culture can be difficult to study, either in oneself or in others. Habitual use makes the cultural lenses that one continually wears disappear from awareness, so that what is seen falsely seems to be objective truth.

In observing foreign peoples and ways of life through one’s own cultural lenses, people tend to automatically judge others—insofar as their ways are different from one’s own—as erroneous and inferior. At the same time, adherents to other traditions or cultures tend to look upon their customs and beliefs using their own cultural assumptions, and they can misinterpret and judge both thought and action according to foreign standards. This natural human tendency is known as ethnocentrism, which is a major barrier to understanding other ways of life and value systems. Ethnocentrism is overcome through cultural relativism, an approach in which judgment is withheld in a measured fashion in an attempt to understand another people’s way of life according to their own perspectives. Once an empathetic understanding is reached, one can begin to compare cultures more accurately according to some external scientific or humanistic standard, in order to discern patterns or make generalizations.

Culture is normally contrasted with instinctual modes of thought and behavior that are not learned, but rather are genetically inherited. While the distinction between biological and cultural inputs is heuristically useful and, indeed, necessary for an understanding of human emotion, cognition, motor behavior, social interaction, and institutions, culture does not exist independently of biologically inherited characteristics, including instinctual drives and behaviors. While some behaviors appear to be almost entirely instinctual (such as an infant’s innate ability to suck) as a rule, both biology and culture are implicated in mo…..

 

Culture
This is the world we live in. Culture defines our society, fuels our differences and highlights our similarities. Every group of people in the world has come from some place and has learned a way of life from that area. Welcome to the TALK ABOUT CULTURE group, one of the most comprehensive bbs style culture discussion forums online. Chat about your favorite culture and from Albania to Zimbabwe there all here. You can review all the answers about cultures of the world here…the best source for cultural information available…period.

Family Tradition

We teach our children about American Culture. We teach them to be good Americans  by sharing our traditions of Citizenship, American Holiday Celebration, Craftsmanship, Entrepreneurship, Competition, Leadership, Know-How, and Positive Attitude.

Our Culture

Beyond the walls of our home lies a great Nation with a culture of its own. The structure of our Government, our laws and the way people relate to each other have great influence on our actions and attitudes. What do you think about when  you hear the words: The United States of America? On our Freedom Page we display the quote “The land of the free, and the home of the brave”. Many of us think of that quote, or quotes from the song: “America The Beautiful”, like “spacious skies” or “amber waves of grain”.

“Only in America”

There is a culture in this country whether spoken or unspoken that manifests itself in everything we say, do, or think. For example, in the United States we expect to compete in every aspect of our lives. At the same time we expect to compete, we also expect to be given equal opportunity to grow to our potential. We believe we all have equal rights under the law. We expect American Industry to put out a quality product and for our Nation to be a leader in the world. Sometimes we even find ourselves “on the soap box” spouting expectations of our Nation’s performance or the performance of American Industry not realizing that unless we each live up to these expectations, our Nation and our Industries cannot. Frequently, many of our competing interests and our strong desire to ensure Individual Freedom, result in extraordinary events taking place that can only be explained by the expression: “Only in America”.

The Culture of the United States is a Western culture, and has been developing since long before the United States became a country. Today the United States is a diverse and multi-cultural nation.^[1]

Its chief early influence was British culture, due to colonial ties with the British that spread the English language, legal system and other cultural inheritances. Other important influences came from other parts of Europe, especially countries from which large numbers immigrated such as Ireland, Germany, Poland, and Italy; the Native American peoples; Africa, especially the western part, from which came the ancestors of most African Americans; and young groups of immigrants. American culture also has shared influence on the cultures of its neighbors in the New World.

The United States has traditionally been known as a melting pot, but recent academic opinion is tending towards cultural diversity, pluralism and the image of a salad bowl rather than a melting pot.^[2][3] Due to the extent of American culture there are many integrated but unique subcultures within the United States. The cultural affiliations an individual in the United States may have commonly depend on social class, political orientation and a multitude of demographic characteristics such as ancestral traditions, sex and sexual orientation.^[1] The strongest influences on American culture came from northern European cultures, most prominently from Germany, Ireland and England.^[3] There are great regional and subcultural differences, making American culture mostly heterogeneous.^[1]