Challenges in Teaching Culture - Research Paper Example

1- David Ludden (The territoriality of knowledge and the history of area studies) maintains that Area Studies have their rationale in a "more complexknowledge about all the separate territories of human experience and activity": should we approach Area Studies as a connecting paradigm between universalism and regionalismFor any area of academic knowledge, it is paramount to remember our theories are just tools used to describe or explain phenomena we observe, especially in social science. In essence, it is only a theory that is in principle falsifiable that is worthwhile.

That said, any study that forms a conduit by which interdisciplinary coherence may be built has potential, but in the end, it is only in its failing that component hypotheses coalesce into bigger and better ways of looking at things. As such, when a system of knowledge emerges that allows for a more elegant explanation of a wider range of data, the obsolete understanding has reached its maximum value.2- The historical moment in which we are now living is widely taken to be the start of a new era.

How this attaches to millennial fantasies and to old-fashioned fin de sicle patterns of cultural production remains to be seen.Make no mistake; nearly every generation sees itself at one time or another as the generation especial. Doomsday prophets have forever propagated their beliefs attenuated to this confirmatory bias. Just because our year 2000 has passed, does not mean it's not over yet. After all, the Mayan calendar implies an end in 2012, and if that does not work, I'm sure we'll think of some other way to scare ourselves about our impending extinction.

The gestalt of any period is built upon the gestalt of their predecessors just as that of their successors are built upon theirs. Time does not appear to be cyclical, and history is the study of human psychology over time. Since people die and are not known to reincarnate en masse with the same mind, history cannot repeat itself. A master once said, "No man will know the hour or the day." I say, "Even if we did, the moment of the cascading events would be so profound there is little anyone could do about it.

"3- What about our epistemic limitationsIn teaching culture our theories, measures and logic represent the limits of our empirical understanding. However, we should remember that language is not that precise of a medium to represent complex ideas. Thus, one method of understand we may wish to implement is the more intuitive. Art has often been able to express where logic fails. Perhaps from these ethereal regions of comprehension do boundaries of dialectic awareness blur to give rise to creative forces which form more concrete concepts.

4- Is Tolerance the solutionTolerance could be a partial solution. History demonstrates some of the most controversial ideas have become some of the most profound discoveries. To initiate the a social environment more open to dissenting scholarly opinion, it is important to underscore that absolute knowledge of reality may be unattainable and cutting edge may be the area of thought least expressed.