cultural artifact analysis essay

MSU Libraries

William c. gast business library.

• Need help? Ask a Librarian

WRA 101: Writing as Inquiry

• About the Library

Develop your Topic

Search for information.

• Disciplinary Literacies Assignment
• Citation Help
• Class Discussion Material

"Cultural Iceberg" Diagram

• The Cultural Iceberg This graphic may help you think about the ways your artifact connects with wider culture.
• The Cultural Iceberg (text-only version)

Do a Little Background Reading

Sometimes, it's hard to know what to write about without doing some background reading about your artifact. This will help you think about what is interesting about the artifact, and help you focus your topic. You probably won't cite your background reading directly in your paper (unless asked to by your instructor), but it's a good way to help you think about your artifact in new ways.

• Wikipedia Yes - we know you know this one already. Wikipedia can be particularly useful if you are looking at an artifact from popular culture and for topics that aren't covered in traditional encyclopedias.

Once you have a preliminary topic, you can start searching for information. Remember, this process is recursive. That means that your topic or focus will probably change as you see what kind of information is out there. For that reason, make sure you don't write your entire paper before finding sources - the sources you find will inform what you write about and are an important part of your writing process.

Start Here: Article Search

Try these next, cultural or national communities, academic communities.

If you want to find the perspective of a particular academic, disciplinary or professional community, try looking through some of the library's resources for that specific group.

MSU Communities

• Search  for websites of individual MSU-affilliated groups, departments, units, or organizations.
• Other information about MSU, including historical information and statistics.

Searching with a Purpose (video)

Video tutorial to help with your research focus and getting started with searching.

Direct link to "Searching with a Purpose" in MSU MediaSpace

Video credit: Megan Kudzia

• << Previous: Books
• Next: Disciplinary Literacies Assignment >>
• Last Updated: Mar 27, 2024 9:45 AM
• URL: https://libguides.lib.msu.edu/wra101

The Parthenon: An Artifact Analysis Essay (Critical Writing)

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Introduction

Parthenon year and place of construction, parthenon reason for construction and the intended audience, historical context of parthenon, parthenon meaning, parthenon means of communication, works cited.

The ancient Greek structure that is now recognized as the Parthenon has, for a long time, been regarded as an excellent example of the perfect, classical architectural design. It is possible that this might be explained by the fact that throughout the classical era of Greek art, proportion and equilibrium were considered to be of the utmost importance (Nova). This can be evidently seen in the architecture of this temple. For instance, the style of the Parthenon’s incorporation into the ideal form most certainly owes to its outlook of a more involved, multi-pronged line of thinking.

As such, the Parthenon is a magnificent temple made of marble that was constructed between 447 and 432 B.C., at the pinnacle of the Medieval Greek Civilization. The building is located above the Athens Acropolis, a set of temples devoted to the goddess Athena (“ History. Com Editors”). Further, it was the biggest and most extravagant shrine in Greek land. Pericles began construction on the Parthenon some 33 years following the Persian conquest of Greece to serve as a replacement for the older temple; hence, the monumental building was consecrated in the year 438 B.C (“ History. Com Editors”). At the Parthenon, sculpting and ornamental work proceeded right up to the year 432 B.C. The construction of the temple is believed to have required 13,400 stones and to have incurred a total expenditure of close to 470 silver talents (Sakoulas). Presently, it is one of the world’s most recognizable structures and an emblem of classical Greek antiquity.

The temple was meant to accommodate the new gigantic sculpture of the goddess by Pheidias and to announce to the world that Athens had beaten the attacking Persian troops under Xerxes and Darius as the head of the alliance of Greek soldiers. The structure would continue in service for more than a millennium, notwithstanding the consequences of time, bombings, robbery, and environmental degradation to its white marble (“ History. Com Editors”). The Parthenon nevertheless dominates the contemporary city of Athens, serving as a stunning reminder of the city’s past splendor and fame.

Furthermore, the motifs of the sculpture mirrored the adversities Athens experienced and continues to encounter. For instance, the Parthenon symbolized the triumph of Greek civilization over ‘barbarian’ alien troops after the Greeks defeated the Persians at Marathon in 490 BCE, Salamis in 480 BCE, and Plataea in 479 BCE (Sakoulas). This tension between order and disorder was exemplified by the carvings on the metopes that wrapped the temple’s perimeter, 32 along the long sides and 14 on each of the short (Sakoulas). These pictured the Olympian gods battling the giants; thus, the East metopes, considered the most important, were the part where the main temple entry was located. Further, Greeks, together with Theseus, battling Amazons were illustrated on the West, and the Fall of Troy was displayed on the North. Similarly, Greeks combating Centaurs, potentially at the marriage ceremony of the king of the Lapiths, Perithous, were represented in the South.

Parthenon was built to commemorate prosperous historical times for the Greeks. Specifically, in 447 B.C., when the Delian League was at the height of its strength, construction on the structure began (Nova). The structure’s historical significance within its surrounding environment revolves around the Greco-Persian Wars, and the Parthenon was erected in this manner as an act of gratitude for the Hellenic people’s triumph against Persian invaders (Nova). The Parthenon, much like the majority of Greek temples, also functioned as the city’s treasury.

The Parthenon epitomized the much sought-after ultimate depiction of ideal and authority, particularly; its classical design and practicality; the statuettes portray different meanings. For example, the Athena posed at Parthenon was tangible evidence of Greek might and form. Thus, it seems that there is a precise rationale and logic underlying the nature of the Parthenon, from its building to its location and, most importantly, different statues that each have cultural significance. When construction on the Parthenon started, the Athenian Kingdom was at its zenith; it embodied the physical and apparent efflorescence of supremacy, unburdened by the destruction of the Peloponnesian War (Thomas 31). Similarly, it represents the authority and prominence of the Athenian statesman who advocated its construction: Pericles.

In essence, the Athenians attained dominion and victory as a result of the protracted conflicts, so they opted to erect monuments in commemoration of their victories. Power and precision in an ideal form were of the utmost importance to Greek society, especially during the Classical era (Thomas 31). Nevertheless, the fact that it was consecrated to the goddess Athena bolsters this view. In spite of the fact that the original Athena statue no longer exists due to centuries of desecration and destruction, other sculptures of the goddess in Greece provide evidence of its significance. Athena, like the Parthenon, represented the strength and flawless form that all Greeks were supposed to possess.

There is no doubt that the Greeks conceptualized their design in human terms to convey various meanings. For example, on the Acropolis, in the south doorway of the Erechtheum, six maidens, or caryatids, are fashioned into pillars. The Roman designer Vitruvius describes the Doric style as manly and the Ionic form as feminine because it is more complex and narrower (Thomas 32). In the same vein, the Greek imagination, the architectural style, and the human form were analogous. In addition, the Parthenon procession is often seen as a re-enactment of the Panathenaic festival, which was staged annually in midsummer to honor the goddess Athena’s birth. In this procession, the best, richest, and brightest of Athens paraded to offer Athena a braided garment called a Peplos, which appears on the structure’s east perimeter.

Ultimately, the Parthenon was a representation of Athenian luxury and its cultural and political supremacy in Greece. It surpassed all the tamples that were ever built in the Greek Empire. Further, it was a planned reaction to the new site of the Olympic Games, which had been completed before the Parthenon’s construction and was similarly filled with artwork depicting transcendental concepts. Pericles and Athens constructed the Parthenon to establish their cultural, political, and military superiority over the entirety of Greece and the Aegean (Thomas 35). Pericles referred to Athens as “the school of Greece,” and the Parthenon was designed to serve as the primary book for the syllabus (Thomas 38). Hence, Parthenon is an essential home for the Greek’s way of communicating the indigenous culture to the current generation.

The antique Greek temple, the Parthenon, is often regarded as a prime example of the ideal, Classical architectural design. During the Classical era of Greek art, symmetry and equilibrium were crucial, which is shown in the building of this temple. However, there is a more multifaceted explanation for the Parthenon’s incorporation into the ideal form that has since been critical in communicating the Greek way of life. Therefore, to comprehend why this architectural edifice is given such a name, one must comprehend the significance of power and rank in Greek society in connection with art.

History.com Editors. “ Parthenon .” History , 2018, Web.

Nova. “ Secrets of the Parthenon .” The Parthenon’s Many Lives . Pbs.org , 2020, Web.

Sakoulas, Thomas. “ Parthenon .” Ancient-Greece.org , 2019, Web.

Thomas, Katerina. “The Athenian Parthenon: Reception and display.” Revista do Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia 28 (2017): 31-41.

• Kingship in the Ancient Near East
• The Democracies of Ancient Greece and the Roman Republic
• The Pantheon of Rome and the Parthenon of Athens
• Sculpture: Elgin Marbles
• The Pazzi Chapel and the Parthenon Comparison
• Roman Republic and Empire to 31 BC
• Ancient Egyptians' Origins and Ethnicity
• Strategies in the Peloponnesian War
• Herodotus and Thucydides' Contributions to Greek Historiography
• The Aztec Civilization and Its Attributes
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2023, December 17). The Parthenon: An Artifact Analysis. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-parthenon-an-artifact-analysis/

"The Parthenon: An Artifact Analysis." IvyPanda , 17 Dec. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/the-parthenon-an-artifact-analysis/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'The Parthenon: An Artifact Analysis'. 17 December.

IvyPanda . 2023. "The Parthenon: An Artifact Analysis." December 17, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-parthenon-an-artifact-analysis/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Parthenon: An Artifact Analysis." December 17, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-parthenon-an-artifact-analysis/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Parthenon: An Artifact Analysis." December 17, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-parthenon-an-artifact-analysis/.

The Study of Cultural Artifacts via Content Analysis

 Robert Kneschke / EyeEm / Getty Images

• Research, Samples, and Statistics
• Key Concepts
• Major Sociologists
• News & Issues
• Recommended Reading
• Archaeology

Researchers can learn a great deal about society by analyzing cultural artifacts such as newspapers, magazines, television programs, or music. These cultural artifacts, which can also be considered aspects of material culture , can reveal a great deal about the society that produced them. Sociologists call the study of these cultural artifacts content analysis . Researchers who use content analysis are not studying the people, but rather are studying the communications the people produce as a way of creating a picture of their society.

Key Takeaways: Content Analysis

• In content analysis, researchers examine a society's cultural artifacts in order to understand that society.
• Cultural artifacts are the aspects of material culture produced by a society, such as books, magazines, televisions shows, and movies.
• Content analysis is limited by the fact that it can only tell us what content a culture has produced, not how members of the society actually feel about those artifacts.

Content analysis is frequently used to measure cultural change and to study different aspects of culture . Sociologists also use it as an indirect way to determine how social groups are perceived. For example, they might examine how African Americans are depicted in television shows or how women are depicted in advertisements.

Content analysis can uncover evidence of racism and sexism in society. For example, in one study, researchers looked at the representation of female characters in 700 different films. They found that only about 30% of characters with a speaking role were female, which demonstrates a lack of representation of female characters. The study also found that people of color and LGBT individuals were underrepresented in film. In other words, by collecting data from cultural artifacts, researchers were able to determine the extent of the diversity problem in Hollywood.

In conducting a content analysis, researchers quantify and analyze the presence, meanings, and relationships of words and concepts within the cultural artifacts they are studying. They then make inferences about the messages within the artifacts and about the culture they are studying. At its most basic, content analysis is a statistical exercise that involves categorizing some aspect of behavior and counting the number of times such behavior occurs. For example, a researcher might count the number of minutes that men and women appear on screen in a television show and make comparisons. This allows us to paint a picture of the patterns of behavior that underlie social interactions portrayed in the media.

Strengths of Using Content Analysis

Content analysis has several strengths as a research method . First, it is a great method because it is unobtrusive. That is, it has no effect on the person being studied since the cultural artifact has already been produced. Second, it is relatively easy to gain access to the media source or publication the researcher wishes to study. Rather than trying to recruit research participants to fill out questionnaires, the researcher can use cultural artifacts that have already been created.

Finally, content analysis can present an objective account of events, themes, and issues that might not be immediately apparent to a reader, viewer, or general consumer. By conducting a quantitative analysis of a large number of cultural artifacts, researchers can uncover patterns that might not be noticeable from looking at only one or two examples of cultural artifacts.

Weaknesses of Using Content Analysis

Content analysis also has several weaknesses as a research method. First, it is limited in what it can study. Since it is based only on mass communication — either visual, oral, or written — it cannot tell us what people really think about these images or whether they affect people’s behavior.

Second, content analysis may not be as objective as it claims since the researcher must select and record data accurately. In some cases, the researcher must make choices about how to interpret or categorize particular forms of behavior and other researchers may interpret it differently. A final weakness of content analysis is that it can be time-consuming, as researchers need to sort through large numbers of cultural artifacts in order to draw conclusions.

Andersen, M.L. and Taylor, H.F. (2009). Sociology: The Essentials. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth.

• Units of Analysis as Related to Sociology
• Four Things That Set Americans Apart and Why They Matter
• The Frankfurt School of Critical Theory
• Using Ethnomethodology to Understand Social Order
• Full-Text Sociology Journals Online
• An Overview of Qualitative Research Methods
• Immersion Definition: Cultural, Language, and Virtual
• What Is Participant Observation Research?
• Sociology Explains Why Some People Cheat on Their Spouses
• Understanding Major Demographic Shifts in the U.S.
• Structural Equation Modeling
• Ethical Considerations in Sociological Research
• What Is Direct Observation?
• How Race and Gender Biases Impact Students in Higher Ed
• Deductive Versus Inductive Reasoning
• Science Says You Should Leave the Period Out of Text Messages

5.8 Spotlight on … Profiling a Cultural Artifact

Learning outcomes.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Read in the profile genre to understand how conventions are shaped by purpose, language, culture, and expectation.
• Read one of a diverse range of texts, attending to relationships among ideas, patterns of organization, and interplay between verbal and nonverbal elements.
• Analyze a composition in relation to a specific historical and cultural context.

If you would like to profile a subject other than a person, you may be unsure of how to make such a focus work. This section features a profile of a cultural artifact and discusses how the elements of profile writing work within the piece.

First, here is some background to help you better understand the blog post: On December 7, 1941, Japanese fighter planes attacked the United States military base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, damaging or destroying more than a dozen ships and hundreds of airplanes. In direct response to this bombing and to fears that Americans of Japanese descent might spy on U.S. military installations, all Japanese immigrants and Japanese Americans living on America’s West Coast—about 120,000 men, women, and children in all—were detained in internment camps for the remainder of the war.

As you will read in the profile, people living in the camps created newspapers for fellow detainees; the subject of this profile is the newspapers themselves. Author Mark Hartsell published his profile of the newspapers, Journalism, behind Barbed Wire , on the Library of Congress blog on May 5, 2017. Look at these notes to find out how profile genre elements can work when the writer focuses on a cultural artifact such as these newspapers.

annotated text As you find when you click on the link above to visit the blog post, Hartsell uses images to show his subject to readers. Providing images can be a particularly strong choice for profiles of places or cultural artifacts. end annotated text

public domain text For these journalists, the assignment was like no other: Create newspapers to tell the story of their own families being forced from their homes, to chronicle the hardships and heartaches of life behind barbed wire for Japanese-Americans held in World War II internment camps. “These are not normal times nor is this an ordinary community,” the editors of the Heart Mountain Sentinel wrote in their first issue. “There is confusion, doubt and fear mingled together with hope and courage as this community goes about the task of rebuilding many dear things that were crumbled as if by a giant hand.” Today, the Library of Congress places online a rare collection of newspapers that, like the Sentinel , were produced by Japanese-Americans interned at U.S. government camps during the war. The collection includes more than 4,600 English- and Japanese-language issues published in 13 camps and later microfilmed by the Library. “What we have the power to do is bring these more to the public,” said Malea Walker, a librarian in the Serial and Government Publications Division who contributed to the project. “I think that’s important, to bring it into the public eye to see, especially on the 75th anniversary.… Seeing the people in the Japanese internment camps as people is an important story.” end public domain text

annotated text Although the blog places almost every sentence in its own “paragraph” for easier online readability, the first four sections function as a cohesive opening paragraph as presented here. Notice how the author supports his points with information synthesized from a variety of sources: quoted material from both the newspapers and one of the project’s curators, background, historical context, and other factual information. end annotated text

public domain text Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order that allowed the forcible removal of nearly 120,000 U.S. citizens and residents of Japanese descent from their homes to government-run assembly and relocation camps across the West—desolate places such as Manzanar in the shadow of the Sierras, Poston in the Arizona desert, Granada on the eastern Colorado plains. There, housed in temporary barracks and surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers, the residents built wartime communities, organizing governing bodies, farms, schools, libraries. They founded newspapers, too—publications that relayed official announcements, editorialized about important issues, reported camp news, followed the exploits of Japanese-Americans in the U.S. military and recorded the daily activities of residents for whom, even in confinement, life still went on. In the camps, residents lived and died, worked and played, got married and had children. One couple got married at the Tanforan assembly center in California, then shipped out to the Topaz camp in Utah the next day. Their first home as a married couple, the Topaz Times noted, was a barracks behind barbed wire in the western Utah desert. end public domain text

annotated text This section offers additional background information and information from secondary research, woven with specific details to help readers imagine the backdrop for the newspaper writing. Hartsell offers a brief overview of typical content found in these newspapers; this description indicates that he has reviewed primary documents. The section concludes with a brief anecdote to show the human face of the original camp newspaper audience. end annotated text

public domain text The internees created their publications from scratch, right down to the names. The Tule Lake camp dubbed its paper the Tulean Dispatch —a compromise between The Tulean and The Dusty Dispatch , two entries in its name-the-newspaper contest. (The winners got a box of chocolates.) Most of the newspapers were simply mimeographed or sometimes handwritten, but a few were formatted and printed like big-city dailies. The Sentinel was printed by the town newspaper in nearby Cody, Wyoming, and eventually grew a circulation of 6,000. end public domain text

annotated text After covering background and context, Hartsell turns to focus on his profile subject. He discusses specific details of naming and producing the newspapers; he also includes information about the writers and their decisions regarding newspaper content. end annotated text

public domain text Many of the internees who edited and wrote for the camp newspapers had worked as journalists before the war. They knew this job wouldn’t be easy, requiring a delicate balance of covering news, keeping spirits up and getting along with the administration. The papers, though not explicitly censored, sometimes hesitated to cover controversial issues, such as strikes at Heart Mountain or Poston. Instead, many adopted editorial policies that would serve as “a strong constructive force in the community,” as a Poston Chronicle journalist later noted in an oral history. They mostly cooperated with the administration, stopped rumors and played up stories that would strengthen morale. Demonstrating loyalty to the U.S. was a frequent theme. The Sentinel mailed a copy of its first issue to Roosevelt in the hope, the editors wrote, that he would “find in its pages the loyalty and progress here at Heart Mountain.” A Topaz Times editorial objected to segregated Army units but nevertheless urged Japanese-American citizens to serve “to prove that the great majority of the group they represent are loyal.” “Our paper was always coming out with editorials supporting loyalty toward this country,” the Poston journalist said. “This rubbed some… the wrong way and every once in a while a delegation would come around to protest.” end public domain text

annotated text People reading these newspapers in current times may be surprised that such newspapers often featured content with a focus on loyalty to the United States. While Hartsell does not dig deeply into alternative views held by internees, he does indicate that some disagreed with the emphasis on such content. Readers are often interested in learning surprising or counterintuitive information about a profile subject. end annotated text

public domain text … (section removed) end public domain text

public domain text As the war neared its end in 1945, the camps prepared for closure. Residents departed, populations shrank, schools shuttered, community organizations dissolved, and newspapers signed off with “–30–,” used by journalists to mark a story’s end. That Oct. 23, the Poston Chronicle published its final issue, reflecting on the history it had both recorded and made. “For many weeks, the story of Poston has unfolded in the pages of the Chronicle,” the editors wrote. “It is the story of people who have made the best of a tragic situation; the story of their frustrations, their anxieties, their heartaches—and their pleasures, for the story has its lighter moments. Now Poston is finished; the story is ended. And we should be glad that this is so, for the story has a happy ending. The time of anxiety and of waiting is over. Life begins again.” end public domain text

annotated text Hartsell closes with a chronological structure, concluding his piece with the closing of the internment camps and their newspapers. He allows the voices of the editors to have the last word. end annotated text

Publishing Your Profile

Because your individual profile is about someone or something related to campus, once you have developed your final draft, you may want to share your work with others at your school. Here are some suggestions:

Group Publication

One option for sharing your work is to create a class book that includes the profiles each student has written. As an alternative, each class member might contribute their own autobiographical profile in which they highlight a moment when they witnessed or enacted an admirable trait. When the individual pieces are complete, class members will work in teams to collect, compile, introduce, and produce the essay collection. The instructor or one of the class teams might compose an afterword to explain the project. The final project could be housed in the campus archives or linked on the campus website.

Campus Newspaper

Another option is to work either individually or in a small group to build on your profile about someone or something of interest to other students, faculty, or staff at your school. Check with the editor of your campus newspaper to learn whether they have suggestions for a revised angle, if needed, and whether they would be interested in publishing your completed profile.

This book may not be used in the training of large language models or otherwise be ingested into large language models or generative AI offerings without OpenStax's permission.

Want to cite, share, or modify this book? This book uses the Creative Commons Attribution License and you must attribute OpenStax.

Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/writing-guide/pages/1-unit-introduction

• Authors: Michelle Bachelor Robinson, Maria Jerskey, featuring Toby Fulwiler
• Publisher/website: OpenStax
• Book title: Writing Guide with Handbook
• Publication date: Dec 21, 2021
• Location: Houston, Texas
• Book URL: https://openstax.org/books/writing-guide/pages/1-unit-introduction
• Section URL: https://openstax.org/books/writing-guide/pages/5-8-spotlight-on-profiling-a-cultural-artifact

© Dec 19, 2023 OpenStax. Textbook content produced by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License . The OpenStax name, OpenStax logo, OpenStax book covers, OpenStax CNX name, and OpenStax CNX logo are not subject to the Creative Commons license and may not be reproduced without the prior and express written consent of Rice University.

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• We're Hiring!
• Help Center

CULTURAL ARTIFACT AND ESSAY ASSIGNMENT.pdf

2018, Culture Artifact

An example assignment for a first-year writing course.

Related Papers

SHADES OF A CULTURE VOL 1 2018.pdf

Dr. William Anderson Gittens D.D.

Terence McDonnell

Syllabus for Cultural Objects and Materiality graduate seminar

Patrick LAVIOLETTE

B. Ricardo Brown

This course explores the relations of cultural artifacts in the contemporary world to their various social contexts. Culture is understood as the material expressions and images that people create and the social environment that shapes the way diverse groups of people experience their world and interact with one another. The course focuses on the critical analysis of these various forms of media, design, mass communications, arts, and popular culture. DETAILED COURSE DESCRIPTION & OBJECTIVES The present era is often characterized as an age of global integration and a truly world economy as well as an era of social and environmental crises. In the midst of these changes we can often hear " culture " invoked as both a positive expression of this globalism and sometimes as something that opposes it. The full meaning of culture remains a topic of fierce debate and so " culture " is used as a political weapon, a claim of privilege, a rallying point for identity, a reservoir of resistance, or refers to various artifacts and practices that must be either preserved (good culture) or eliminated (degenerate culture). Cultural Studies emerged from the attempts to understand these complex social and political uses of " culture " in such debates as those over " high & low " art, the value of the artifacts of popular culture (cinema, television, music, etc.), the deployments of knowledge and authority in the social relations of everyday life. We will examine how Cultural Studies offered a critical understanding of what Max Horkheimer termed " life as it is lived. " Attention will be paid to the fate of Cultural Studies as it became accepted and absorbed by various academic disciplines. In the final sessions, special attention will be given to the reception of Cultural Studies in the United States. This course is designed to give you a foundation in Cultural Studies. It will show you how Cultural Studies emerged and its subsequent variations and lines of descent. You are not expected to already know this, nor are you expected to already be familiar with the texts we will use and issues that will be raised. You are expected to engage the course materials seriously. You will finish the course with an introduction to different ways of understanding the history of the present day and the social relations of everyday life.

Naomi Darling

Our underlying goal, in addition to broadening students’ exposure to other histories and ways of thinking, is to reinforce the notion that achieving a deeper level of sustainability in architecture requires a thorough-going engagement with culture.

Introductory Notes on Cultural Studies

Introduction to Cultural Studies is a course of study for students pursuing a Masters in English Literature. As part of the course, it will be helpful for the students if they get a quick-tour kind of an introduction to the discipline called Cultural Studies. As a study of culture, the title presupposes a knowledge about what encompasses the word 'culture', we may attempt a definition of it first. Culture can be defined as an asymmetric combinations of abstract and actual aspects of elements like language, art, food, dress, systems like family, religion, education, and practices like mourning and 'merrying', all of which we refer to as cultural artifacts. It is assumed that values and identities are formed, interacted and represented in a society in association with these artifacts. Cultural Studies, therefore, is a constant engagement with contemporary culture by studying, analyzing and interacting with the institutions of culture and their functions in the society.

Allison K Lange

Stephanie Rountree

Georgia State University’s Guide to First-Year Writing 3rd and 4th Eds. Expanded and Revised with Jennifer Vala. Southlake, TX: Fountainhead Press, 2014 and 2015. 307-354. Print.

Kevin Sedeño-Guillén

This course is part of the post-intermediate 300-level program that forms the introduction to the major or minor in Spanish. Its thematic focus will be the animal rights and human rights in the Caribbean, Latin American and U.S. literature, film, culture and media and will center particularly on the second half of the Twentieth-century and what goes of the Twenty-first century. In addition to building an understanding of the animal rights and human rights, this course is designed to provide students with structured and guided writing practice to assist them in progressing their writing skills in Spanish. We will practice textual forms of description, narration, exposition and argumentation, and interpersonal communication modes in social media as well. Texts include short stories, fragment of novels, essays, memoirs, films, songs, bailes, poetry, and news. A series of different writing projects —a description, a narration, an exposition, and an academic essay— will be assigned to improve students’ writing skills. This course will be conducted entirely in Spanish.

Loading Preview

Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.

RELATED PAPERS

Every Culture Has A Preface © 2023 ISBN978-976-97021-4-1

Matteo Rivera

Natnipat Vetcu

Marsha Morton

David Theroux

Developing Materials for Language Teaching

TransformELT Consultancy

Guidelines for a Decision Support Method Adapted to NPD Processes

Xiangyang Xin

Merve Cavkaytar

In Approaches to Cultural Studies (Sfax, Tunisia: Laboratory on Approaches to Discourse, pp. 160-211) - [ISBN: 978-9973-33-529-6]

Sadok Damak

suthadi guritno

Emmanuel Caliwan, J.D.

Sandrine Bertaux

Mary Thrond

ΑΝΑΣΤΑΣΙΑ ΧΟΥΡΝΑΖΙΔΟΥ

jamal houmane

The International Academic Forum (IAFOR)

Naeim Sepehri , Amitabha Gupta

AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples

Kgomotso Garegae

International Journal of English and Literature

Tamar Mebuke

Heather E Young-Leslie

Traditions and Cultural Heritage

Augustin Ferdinand Charles Holl

dominic kandagor

RELATED TOPICS

•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

Cultural Artifact Introduction

This activity combines an initial asynchronous step with a follow-up presentation activity in real-time during class. As a way of getting to know each other and building community, each student will contribute one “cultural artifact introduction slide” to a class slide deck 1-2 days before the first class. This activity offers an opportunity to share some event or object that connects to an aspect of students’ identities, histories, languages, and communities. A cultural artifact is an aspect of material culture (an action, event, or object) that gives us insight into its creators and users. Students’ cultural artifacts may be represented in the form of a photo, image, text, screen grab or embedded media.

Author: Jennifer Johnson

Course : PWR 2, PWR 1

Activity length and schedule:

• Asynch: 20 minutes: Developing a cultural artifact slide
• Synch: 20-25 minutes: Breakout rooms/Small group mini-presentations & group discussion

Activity timing : Best for first or second day of the quarter, assigned 1-2 days in advance

Activity goals:

• Builds community and offers students an opportunity to share some event or object that connects to an aspect of their identities, histories, languages, and communities
• Offers a low-stakes speaking/presenting with multimedia opportunity that asks students to consider their rhetorical situation

Activity details:

In this activity students will:

• Create a cultural artifact slide on a class slide deck
• Why did you choose this artifact? 
• How does this object, action or event give us insight into your cultural, linguistic or community practices at a specific time and place in your history or at present?
• Find themes, patterns and connections in the artifacts and presentations
• Discuss how presenters consider their rhetorical situation

Please find the student-facing handout here .

The activity directions can also be posted into a Canvas assignment.

Additional notes : This cultural artifact slide activity version was created for an on-line LSP. A special thanks to the LSP team for the conversations that helped me fine-tune the activity. To build early connections with students, LSP instructors found it very valuable to also create their own cultural artifact slide and send it to students 1-2 days before the first class as an example.  Other tips: 1. If you have two sections, be sure to create two google slide decks. 2. Link directions on the first slide and add “If google slides is new to you, feel free to reach out for assistance. Click the + button in the top left corner to add a slide.”

• Social Sciences

Cultural Artifact Analysis

30 Aug 2022

Format: APA

Academic level: University

Paper type: Essay (Any Type)

Downloads: 0

In the 1970’s, many feminists critiqued beauty practices that were dubbed pervasive and shallow. However, these concerns have not borne fruit as the society, and the media have continued to perpetuate the concept of the idealized beauty. Many women are engaging in negative and somewhat brutal beauty practices to appease the society or fit in the conceptualized image of beauty. This has been extended to the corporate world where advertisements have continuously been designed to tap into misogyny. It is prudent to note that ads are effective as they appeal to the sub-conscience of an individual. This means that a person absorbs information without actually processing what an ad is selling (Lips, 2010). This has led to the problem of inherent sexism when it comes to ads that are embraced as sexist by trying to distort the concept of feminine beauty. Many corporates have also tapped into this negative energy by seeking to link their products to enhancing beauty. This perspective has continuously grown to be held by even corporations that are not in the beauty and cosmetic industry. A good example is the Bacardi Breezer beer advertisement dubbed “Wanna Look Amazing This Summer?” The advertisement is ideally tailored for impressionable women beer consumers. It uses the aspect of beauty to commercialize the product.

The Bacardi Breezer advertisement uses the image of an overweight female to promote the alcoholic drink ( Hartmann, 2009) . The advert seems to insinuate that just like Bacardi Breezer, ugly and overweight female friends come in all varieties and are effective at promoting your attractiveness to the rest of the public. Bacardi as a company seems to have understood that physical attractiveness is a fundamental issue for women and the society at large . The gender stereotypes have been pursued to depict women as only interested in looking better than peers than intelligent enough to appreciate a product for its qualities. The advertisement by Bacardi seems to show that fat shaming is a positive thing to many impressionable women. Being aesthetically challenged thus is used to indicate that an individual only fits to be at the center point of a social circle if she has the looks.

Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.

The “Wanna Look Amazing This Summer?” parallels other advertisements that use the summer context . Many of these advertisements promote the ideal summer look and body shape. The ideal summer body has to be slender, tanned and toned with a perky bosom. This idealized image is encouraged by the media as something that all women ought to aspire to during the summer. In many advertisements, the bystanders or other complementing characters are not well endowed aesthetically. In th is particular advert, however, the perceived “less glamorous individuals” are used to promote the brand as the complementary aspect to a more attractive female that is supposedly the consumer of the liquor.

The objectification of women is significantly enhanced in this advertisement as evidence d by the use of an overweight woman as the pawn of the grand scheme of highlighting how alcohol makes you attractive as compared to the objectified image of the overweight woman. It is a disrespectful trend, but it has already taken root in the advertisement narrative since time immemorial . The corporates have taken the unethical stand of shaming women by their looks rather than their internal qualities , which if capitalized on actually can be a selling point (Lips, 2010). This continues to justify the anger directed to companies that continue to objectify women to sell utterly unrelated products such as alcohol.

The advertisement, on the other hand, rides on the liberalization of women. In the patriarchal society, a woman was seen as a homemaker and conservative. The Bacardi Breezer advertisement, however, tramples on these beliefs depicting the mentality of liberal women who a spire to outgrow the gender stereotypes on partaking alcohol during summer. This is retrogressive as a liberal stance as it negatively impacts on other sections of the female populace. It is a subjugation of women to certain untold depths that will take a toll on those that may not be appealing as per the standards set by the media and the society in general (Lips, 2010). It also tries to capture the common myths associated with women and their composition of their friends when it comes to dating as well as other social interaction platforms. There is an age-old belief which centers on the advantage of having a less glamorous friend that aids in making one enjoy the benefits of a charming comparison ( Hartmann, 2009) . However , this should not be used as an excuse by corporations such as Bacardi to generate profits. The toxicity of these advertisements seems to send a message that it is fine to judge or shame women based on their appearance.

Anderson (2014) continues to show that consumerism is continuously gendered to promote products through dubious depictions of women. The Bacardi Breezer advertisement is an ideal example of corporate neoliberalis m and its perceived support of women empowerment through pushing products that were formerly tailored for men. The commercial has an indirect harm to women who despite making strides socio-politically have to put up with the toxicity linked to the unrealistic expectations bestowed on them with respect to physical appearance. Men do not have to contend with such advertisements when it comes to alcohol brands. This is because m ost alcohol brands tailor their ads to target the male consumers by emphasi zing on manly characteristics rather than looks.

References  

Anderson, K. J. (2014).  Modern misogyny: Anti-feminism in a post-feminist era . Oxford University Press. 

Hartmann, M. (2009 June 19). Bacardi ad uses misogyny to sell alcohol to women. Jezebel Retrieved from http://jezebel.com/5296935/bacardi-ad-uses-misogyny-to-sell-alcohol-to-women 

Lips, H. M. (2010).  New psychology of women: Gender, culture, and ethnicity  (4th ed.). Waveland Pr Inc. 

• What is the Relational Paradigm?
• Clinical Social Work Problem-Solving Process

Select style:

StudyBounty. (2023, September 15). Cultural Artifact Analysis . https://studybounty.com/cultural-artifact-analysis-essay

Hire an expert to write you a 100% unique paper aligned to your needs.

Related essays

We post free essay examples for college on a regular basis. Stay in the know!

How to Do a SWOT Analysis for Your Business

Letter of consent for research study, mental representations and the mind-brain relationship.

Words: 1796

Building a Healthy Marriage

Words: 1266

Devastating Impacts of Domestic Violence

Words: 2437

How Emotions Affect Marketing and Sales

Words: 1113

Running out of time ?

Entrust your assignment to proficient writers and receive TOP-quality paper before the deadline is over.

15 Examples of Cultural Artifacts (A to Z List +Pictures)

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

Learn about our Editorial Process

Cultural artifacts are man-made objects that are of importance to a cultural group. They are uniquely identified with that cultural group, usually because they are a product of their culture.

In archaeology, artifacts are objects crafted by humans and found in excavations. A cultural artifact is of particular importance because it can reveal information about the practices of the culture under analysis.

In general discourse, a cultural artifact can be any object – past or present – with which a group is identified.

Examples of cultural artifacts from the past include arrowheads and weapons dug up during archaeological digs. Examples from the present might include objects with which our culture may be identified in the future such as smartphones and motorcycles.

Examples of Cultural Artifacts

1. arrow heads – north america.

In many areas of North America, archaeological surveys need to be conducted before construction of new sites on virgin land. This is to ensure Native American cultural artifacts are not destroyed.

During these surveys, the most common artifacts that are extracted are arrowheads. Archaeologists can date the activities on the land by examining the construction of the arrowheads. Generally, over time, arrowheads in North America became smaller, due to technological advancements in arrow production.

Through this analysis, the movements and cultural activities of various tribes can be mapped out to gain a more thorough understanding of the history of the continent.

See more about weapons as artifacts in our article on examples of artifacts in archeology .

2. Boomerangs – Aboriginal Australian

Boomerangs are an artifact instantly identifiable with Aboriginal Australian culture. A similar artifact is the boomerang, which is also exclusive to Aborignal identity.

Images of boomerangs are depicted in Aboriginal rock art that is believed to be 50,000 years old. The oldest Aboriginal boomerang uncovered is about 10,000 years old, when Aboriginal peoples lived in a pre-industrial type of society .

Interestingly, while boomerangs are almost synonymous with Australian Aboriginals, they were used by other cultures as well. Several were found in Tutanhamun’s tomb, while the oldest remaining boomerang is from Poland and dates back 20,000 years.

Coins have been used by many cultures throughout history and are a sign of evolution from simple trade to market-based and retail cultures.

However, coins are excellent examples of cultural artifacts because each culture’s coin is different. They are very useful in dating findings in an archaeological dig because most coins only remain in circulation for 10 – 30 years before being lost, retired, or replaced.

Even today, we can tell the difference between an American and British coin with ease. One has the Queen’s head on it while the other usually has a republican emblem (which reveals information about each culture).

The first coins were used in the Kingdom of Lydia (modern day Turkey) before spreading to Ancient Greece.

4. Komps (Dutch Clogs)

Dutch clogs are a traditional dutch shoe made of wood that are instantly identifiable.

Known as the Klomp, they were a traditional workshoe for Dutch people and are still worn by some Dutch people to this day.

The Dutch clog is a full fitting clog carved from a complete block of wood. They’re often painted with bright colors and patterns that are emblematic of Dutch culture.

Today, around 3 million Klompen are made per year, although most of these are sold to tourists as they are not as fashionable today as they were in traditional Dutch society.

5. Murtis – Hinduism

Murtis are statues of Hundu deities that are often placed on shrines in homes and temples. In Hinduism, these statues are often treated as god-like manifestations that are to be cared for as honored guests.

In some traditions, they are awoken, fed, washed and garlanded daily as an act of devotion to the gods they represent. They are not believed to be gods personally, but are representations wherein the treatment of the Murti is a direct reflection of the devotees treatment of the God as an honored guest in the home or temple.

These are examples of cultural artifacts because they are unambiguously identified with a specific culture.

6. Kippah (Yarmulke) – Judaism

A kippah or yarmulke is a jewish headdress worn by men during worship. It is a disc-like brimless hat that often sits toward the back of the head.

The kippah is worn to observe the Jewish law that heads should be covered during worship, although the kippah is also worn at all times by some Orthodox Jews.

When a person is seen wearing one, they are instantly identifiable as a Jewish person. As a result, this item is unambiguously a cultural artifact of Judaism.

7. Matryoshka Dolls – Russian

Matryoshka dolls, also known as babushka dolls, are stackable dolls from Russia. They date back to just 1890, but are recognizable as a Russian cultural artifact today.

The dolls are unique in that the wooden doll breaks apart to reveal a smaller duplicate of it inside. That internal duplicate can also break open to reveal another smaller duplicate inside, and so forth.

8. National Flags – Various

All recognized nations have a national flag. This flag is usually flown outside government buildings and at sporting events.

The national flag acts as a marker of the cultural identity and allegiance of its owners. In some nations, such as the United States, it has also come to be flown by laypeople on flagpoles outside their houses as a sign of national pride.

National flags have their origins in naval military flags which were flown on ships to signify their allegiance to passers-by. The Union Jack was flown in 1606 by King James VI when the countries of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales were united under the one king.

Later, in 1777, the United States adopted a unifying national flag, which went through several iterations before the current version was finalized in 1960.

9. Rosary Beads – Catholic Cultural Artifact

Rosary beads are Catholic prayer beads that make their holder instantly identifiable as a practitioner of the Catholic faith.

While there are prayer beads of other denominations, the Catholic rosary beads are easily identifiable by the pattern of beads and the Christian cross at the base.

The rosary is a series of prayers, prayed all at once in sequence, and the beads help the devotee to keep track of their progress.

Generally, the devotee will hold one bead at a time, say its associated prayer, then move up to the next bead, until the full cycle of prayers is complete. Prayers in the cycle include Hail Mary, Glory Be, and the Lord’s Prayer (among others).

The rosary was practiced in early Christianity and was endorsed by Pope Pious V in the 16th Century.

10. Renaissance Art – European Renaissance Era

Renaissance art is instantly identifiable due to its common themes and techniques. Examples include Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and Michaelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling.

The focus of Renaissance art was perspective and depth. Techniques employed to achieve this included proportion, foreshortening, sfumato, and chiaroscuro. Themes in the art were generally reverent to God and Christianity as well as beautiful women or wars.

The artwork is associated with the humanist and enlightenment periods in Europe that were characterized by bursts in invention and creativity and a turn away from medieval Christian thought.

The greatest collection of Renaissance cultural artifacts is now held in the Louvre museum in Paris.

11. Smart Phones – 21st Century Cultural Artifact

Smartphones will be seen by future historians as the cultural artifacts of our current times. They are handheld items that reveal a great deal about our culture and society.

The smartphone will be able to place us at a particular moment in history (characterized by globalization and digitized social communication) and their effects will be debated for decades to come.

Already, we know that the smartphone has had a dramatic impact on our ability to travel (having a personal navigator), communicate, share knowledge, and seek help during an emergency. It’s also believed to be having an impact on humans’ abilities to concentrate due to its addictive nature.

12. Tartans – Scottish

Tartans are a distinctive dress worn by men in Scotland. The pattern on the tartan can identify a man with his traditional clan and their place of origin when Scotland was occupied by disparate clan groups.

Today, the tartan is still worn throughout the world by people of Scottish heritage. It’s a formal item of dress that can be worn at events such as weddings, funerals, and christenings.

The tartan is also associated with another Scottish cultural artifact, the bagpipes, because they’re often worn by the players.

13. Kirpan – Sikhs

The kirpan is a culturally significant knife worn by Sikh men. It is one of five items that Sikh guru Gobind Singh Ji decreed should be worn by Khalsa Sikhs in 1699.

The other four items to be worn at all times are: kesh (a beard), kangha (a wooden comb), kara (an iron bracelet), and kachera (a white undergarment).

The knife was to be worn by Sikhs in order to defend the needy and oppressed. Today, it is worn as an article of faith rather than a fighting weapon. It is a controversial item, however, where it is banned in some countries as a weapon, but given an exception in others because it is worn primarily as a religious item rather than for fighting.

14. Viking Helmets – Vikings

Viking helmets are occasionally found by archeologists in Scandinavia and the British Isles. They are easily identifiable by their style and shape.

This is an example of a cultural artifact that is of archeological significance. When extracted, the era and culture of the dig site is instantly known.

Vikings would wear these helmets during their many skirmishes in Northern Europe, and especially during raids of the British Isles. They were particularly feared people due to their unforgiving fighting style and ability to conduct fast raids from sea. The rise of Castles in the 11th Century allowed people to defend themselves more effectively against such raids.

The quill was a pen that was a pen without an ink reservoir and made of a bird feather. It was the primary writing implement in use between the 6th and 19th Centuries.

The Quill was superseded by the dip pen, which was also a pen without an ink reservoir, and then this was replaced by the fountain pen.

Quills can place a person in a particular place and time. They were the ‘technology of the day’ in Western Europe throughout times of incredible change and intellectual development . They were used to write some of the most important books in history, include great philosophical treatises from the Renaissance era.

Cultural artifacts are unique human-crafted objects that are of significance to a particular culture. When we come across a cultural artifact, it can be a compelling primary source that tells us about a culture and the conditions (technological, social, and so forth) at a particular place and time.

Similarly, our knowledge of cultural artifacts can also help us give context to a place that we are trying to learn more about. In archeology, for example, the identification of two artifacts side-by-side can give us information about both artifacts at once. We can make inferences about their association if we know the cultural context of one of those artifacts.

• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 10 Reasons you’re Perpetually Single
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 20 Montessori Toddler Bedrooms (Design Inspiration)
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 21 Montessori Homeschool Setups
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 101 Hidden Talents Examples

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *