Seminars (Tutorials)
Seminar 1. Culturology as a branch of scientific knowledge
(4 h.)
1. Background of culturology. The subject of culturology.
2. Basic categories of culturology: "culture", "civilization", "value."
3. Functions of culture.
4. Cultural typology and its main variants.
Seminar2. The problems of cultural genesis
(2 h.)
1. The main ideas of the labor conception of the origin of the culture.
2. The problem of the origin of culture in psychoanalytic conception.
3. Play as a determining factor of the origin of the culture by J. Huizinga.
Seminar3. Theoretical schemes of cultural changes
(2 h.)
1. Evolutionary model of cultural development
2. Cyclic schemes of cultural change.
3. P.Sorokin’s wave model of cultural development
4. Synergetic and postmodernistic schemes of cultural development.
Seminar4. Classical theories of civilizations
(2 h.)
1. N. Danylevsky’s conception of cultural-historical type.
2. O. Spengler’s doctrine of the local cultures.
3. The concept of "cycling of local civilizations" of A. Toynbee.
Seminar5. The ancient civilizations of the East
(2 h.)
1. General characteristics of ancient civilizations.
2. Culture of Ancient Egypt.
3. The civilization of ancient Mesopotamia.
4. Culture of Ancient China.
5. Culture of Ancient India.
Seminar6. Antique(greco-roman) culture
(4 h.)
1. General characteristics of the main stages of development of antique culture.
2. Polis as the social basis of antique culture.
3. The value system of antique culture.
4. Features of antique art.
5. Antique culture as the cradle of European civilization.
Seminar7. Medieval culture
(2 h.)
1. Sociocultural characteristics of person of Middle Ages.
2. Christian consciousness - the basis of Western European medieval mentality.
3. Main subculture of medieval society.
4. Art of the European Middle Ages.
5. The influence of European Ages on the cultural development of peoples of Western Europe.
Seminar8. Culture of Renaissance
(2 h.)
1. Socio-economic, socio-political and ideological prerequisites for the establishment of the European Renaissance.
2. Formation of a new type of personality
3. The contradictory character of culture of the Renaissance
4. Visual Arts and Literature of the Renaissance.
Seminar9. Culture of Modern times
(4 h.)
1. Socio-economic and scientific prerequisites for the formation of culture in modern times
2. Scientific revolution of XVI-XVII centuries and its importance in the formation of a new perception of the world.
3. Value-ideological orientation of new time: reducing the authority of faith and church, strengthening the processes of secularization, increasing social mobility and behavioral autonomy of person.
4. The basic ideas and prominent representatives of the Enlightenment.
5. Art of modern times: the major artistic styles.
Seminar10. Contemporary culture
(4 h.)
1. The main features of the cultural development of contemporary time:
а) changing of moral values of man in technological civilization;
b) global problems.
2. The phenomenon of mass culture.
3. The contemporary art:
а) modernism and its basic directions;
b) art of postmodernism.