Author: Richard E. Nisbett File Type: pdf When psychologist Richard E. Nisbett showed an animated underwater scene to his American students, they zeroed in on a big fish swimming among smaller fish. Japanese observers instead commented on the background environment -- and the different seeings are a clue to profound cognitive differences between Westerners and East Asians. As Nisbett shows in The Geography of Thought, people think about -- and even see -- the world differently because of differing ecologies, social structures, philosophies, and educational systems that date back to ancient Greece and China. The Geography of Thought documents Professor Nisbetts groundbreaking research in cultural psychology, addressing questions such asullWhy did the ancient Chinese excel at algebra and arithmetic, but not geometry, the brilliant achievement of such Greeks as Euclid?llWhy do East Asians find it so difficult to disentangle an object from its surroundings?llWhy do Western infants learn nouns more rapidly than verbs, when it is the other way around in East Asia?lulAt a moment in history when the need for cross-cultural understanding and collaboration have never been more important, The Geography of Thought offers both a map to that gulf and a blueprint for a bridge that might be able to span it.From Publishers WeeklyThis book may mark the beginning of a new front in the science wars. Nisbett, an eminent psychologist and co-author of a seminal Psychological Review paper on how people talk about their decision making, reports on some of his latest work in cultural psychology. He contends that [h]uman cognition is not everywhere the same-that those brought up in Western and East Asian cultures think differently from one another in scientifically measurable ways. Such a contention pits his work squarely against evolutionary psychology (as articulated by Steven Pinker and others) and cognitive science, which assume all appreciable human characteristics are hard wired. Initial chapters lay out the traditional differences between Aristotle and Confucius, and the social practices that produced (and have grown out of) these differing homeostatic approaches to the world Westerners tend to inculcate individualism and choice (40 breakfast cereals at the supermarket), while East Asians are oriented toward group relations and obligations (the tall poppy is cut down remains a popular Chinese aphorism). Next, Nisbett presents his actual experiments and data, many of which measure reaction times in recalling previously shown objects. They seem to show East Asians (a term Nisbett uses as a catch-all for Chinese, Koreans, Japanese and others) measurably more holistic in their perceptions (taking in whole scenes rather than a few stand-out objects). Westerners, or those brought up in Northern European and Anglo-Saxon-descended cultures, have a tunnel-vision perceptual style that focuses much more on identifying whats prominent in certain scenes and remembering it. Writing dispassionately yet with engagement, Nisbett explains the differences as an inevitable consequence of using different tools to understand the world. If his explanation turns out to be generally accepted, it means a big victory for memes in their struggle with genes. 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Scientific AmericanNisbett, a psychologist and Distinguished University Professor at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, used to believe that all human groups perceive and reason in the same way. A series of events and studies led him gradually to quite another view, that Asians and Westerners have maintained very different systems of thought for thousands of years. Different how? The collective or interdependent nature of Asian society is consistent with Asians broad, contextual view of the world and their belief that events are highly complex and determined by many factors. The individualistic or independent nature of Western society seems consistent with the Western focus on particular objects in isolation from their context and with Westerners belief that they can know the rules governing objects and therefore can control the objects behavior. Nisbett explores areas that manifest these different approaches--among them medicine, law, science, human rights and international relations. Are the societal differences so great that they will lead to conflict? Nisbett thinks not. I believe the twain shall meet by virtue of each moving in the direction of the other. Editors of Scientific American A landmark book (Robert J. Sternberg, president of the American Psychological Association) by one of the worlds preeminent psychologists that proves human behavior is not hard-wired but a function of culture.Everyone knows that while different cultures think about the world differently, they use the same equipment for doing their thinking. But what if everyone is wrong? The Geography of Thought documents Richard Nisbetts groundbreaking international research in cultural psychology and shows that people actually think aboutand even seethe world differently because of differing ecologies, social structures, philosophies, and educational systems that date back to ancient Greece and China. As a result, East Asian thought is holisticdrawn to the perceptual field as a whole and to relations among objects and events within that field. By contrast, Westerners focus on salient objects or people, use attributes to assign them to categories, and apply rules of formal logic to understand their behavior. From feng shui to metaphysics, from comparative linguistics to economic history, a gulf separates the children of Aristotle from the descendants of Confucius. At a moment in history when the need for cross-cultural understanding and collaboration have never been more important, The Geography of Thought offers both a map to that gulf and a blueprint for a bridge that will span it.

Author: Ronan McDonald File Type: pdf This is an eloquent and accessible introduction to one of the most important writers of the twentieth century. This book provides biographical and contextual information, but more fundamentally, it also considers how we might think about an enduringly difficult and experimental novelist and playwright who often challenges the very concepts of meaning and interpretation. It deals with his life, intellectual and cultural background, plays, prose, and critical response and relates Becketts work and vision to the culture and context from which he wrote. McDonald provides a sustained analysis of the major plays, including Waiting for Godot, Endgame, and Happy Days and his major prose works including Murphy, Watt and his famous trilogy of novels (Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable). This introduction concludes by mapping the huge terrain of criticism Becketts work has prompted, and it explains the turn in recent years to understanding Beckett within his historical context.Review... it is an excellent book it does exactly what it says on the tin. ... The greatest strength of the book is in McDonalds ability to articulate a shapely overview while maintaining a sharp sense of the distinctions ... Irish Studies Review Book DescriptionThis is an eloquent and accessible introduction to one of the most important writers of the twentieth century, explaining how we might interpret famously difficult and experimental works such as Waiting for Godot, Endgame, and Happy Days and providing an invaluable overview of Beckett and his time.

Author: Rüdiger Görner File Type: pdf Myths determine the way cultures understand themselves. The papers in this volume examine culturally specific myths in Britain and the German-speaking world, and compare approaches to the theory of myth, together with the ways in which mythological formations operate in literature, aesthetics and politics - with a focus on the period around 1800. They enquire into the consequences of myth-oriented discourses for the way in which these two cultures understand each other, and in this way make a significant contribution to a more profound approach to intercultural research.**

Author: Sara R. Johnson File Type: pdf The third volume of research on ancient fiction This volume includes essays presented in the Ancient Fictions and Early Christian and Jewish Narrative section of the Society of Biblical Literature. Contributors explore facets of ongoing research into the interplay of history, fiction, and narrative in ancient Greco-Roman, Jewish, and Christian texts. The essays examine the ways in which ancient authors in a variety of genre and cultural settings employed a range of narrative strategies to reflect on pressing contemporary issues, to shape community identity, or to provide moral and educational guidance for their readers. Not content merely to offer new insights, this volume also highlights strategies for integrating the fruits of this research into the university classroom and beyond. Features ul lInsight into the latest developments in ancient Mediterranean narrativel l ll Exploration of how to use ancient texts to encourage students to examine assumptions about ancient gender and sexuality or to view familiar texts from a new perspective l l Close readings of classical authors as well as canonical and noncanonical Jewish and Christian texts l ul Sara R. Johnson is Associate Professor of Classics and Mediterranean Studies in the Department of Literatures, Cultures and Languages at the University of Connecticut. Her publications include Historical Fictions and Hellenistic Jewish Identity Third Maccabees in Its Cultural Context (2004). Ruben R. Dupertuis is Associate Professor of Religion in the Religion Department at Trinity University. He is the author of several essays and articles and the coeditor of Engaging Early Christian History Reading Acts in the Second Century (2013). Christine Shea is Professor of Classics in the Department of Modern Languages and Classics at Ball State University. Her publications include, among others, works on the canonical Acts, the Greek romances as models for Christian narratives, and Roman epic and Christian identity. **