The Transmission of Culture (1986-1988)

Artist Ron Blackburn painting an outdoor wall mural at the corner of 33rd and Giles Streets in Chicago. 1973.

During the academic years 1986/87 and 1987/88, the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies focused on the problem of the transmission of culture. How are culture and ideas transmitted across time, class, and different cultural groups? What are the implications of these processes?

Topics Included:

  • Oral and print culture
  • Images
  • Legally defined norms and values
  • Cultural change
  • Tradition
  • Empire
  • High versus low culture
  • Technological change
  • Mythology, propaganda, and cliché

Davis Center Fellows

1986-1987

  • Susanna I. Barrows, University of California, Berkeley
  • Victoria De Grazia, Rutgers University
  • Alan Charles Kors, University of Pennsylvania
  • Molly Nesbit, Barnard College, Columbia University

1987-1988

  • Valerie I.J. Flint, University of Auckland
  • David Hall, Boston University
  • William Hunt, St. Lawrence University
  • Lisa Jardine, Queens Mary and Westfield Colleges, London
  • Donald R. Kelley, University of Rochester
  • David Prochaska, University of Illinois
  • David Sugarman, University of Lancaster

Shelby Cullom Davis Center Volume

The Transmission of Culture in Early Modern Europe Edited by Anthony Grafton and Ann Blair

The Transmission of Culture in Early Modern Europe

Edited by Anthony Grafton and Ann Blain
Copyright 1990 University of Pennsylvania Press