Book contents
- Culture, Mind, and Brain
- Current Perspectives in Social and Behavioral Sciences
- Culture, Mind, and Brain
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- Part I Dynamics of Culture, Mind, and Brain
- Part II Applications
- 12 The Cultural Brain as Historical Artifact
- 13 Experience-Dependent Plasticity in the Hippocampus
- 14 Liminal Brains in Uncertain Futures
- 15 The Reward of Musical Emotions and Expectations
- 16 Literary Analysis and Weak Theories
- 17 Capturing Context Is Not Enough
- 18 Social Neuroscience in Global Mental Health
- 19 Cities, Psychosis, and Social Defeat
- 20 Internet Sociality
- 21 Neurodiversity as a Conceptual Lens and Topic of Cross-Cultural Study
- 22 Epilogue
- Index
- References
12 - The Cultural Brain as Historical Artifact
from Part II - Applications
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 September 2020
- Culture, Mind, and Brain
- Current Perspectives in Social and Behavioral Sciences
- Culture, Mind, and Brain
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- Part I Dynamics of Culture, Mind, and Brain
- Part II Applications
- 12 The Cultural Brain as Historical Artifact
- 13 Experience-Dependent Plasticity in the Hippocampus
- 14 Liminal Brains in Uncertain Futures
- 15 The Reward of Musical Emotions and Expectations
- 16 Literary Analysis and Weak Theories
- 17 Capturing Context Is Not Enough
- 18 Social Neuroscience in Global Mental Health
- 19 Cities, Psychosis, and Social Defeat
- 20 Internet Sociality
- 21 Neurodiversity as a Conceptual Lens and Topic of Cross-Cultural Study
- 22 Epilogue
- Index
- References
Summary
It has become manifest across the biological sciences that culture is a dynamic component of human brain–body formation and experience. Culture is essential to understanding questions of neuroplasticity, emotional development, interoception, epigenetics, predictive coding, facial recognition, empathy, and so on, yet culture itself is often reduced by those sciences that have come to depend on it. It is "the exterior," or it is "input." The "world," insofar as it introduces contingency to what it is to be human, is not in itself understood as contingent. What happens when culture – both a cause and an effect of human formation – is itself situated, disrupted, historicized? Historians hold the keys to a radical interdisciplinary engagement that complicates the question of culture in ways complementary to the biological disruption of interiority. The cultural brain is an historical artefact. Acknowledging this should change the kinds of questions asked by those who study the brain.
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- Information
- Culture, Mind, and BrainEmerging Concepts, Models, and Applications, pp. 367 - 374Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020