Culture UP!

Thank you for visiting my new wikizine, Culture UP!
(They wouldn't give me the exclamation point.)

I started a wikizine at the recommendation of a friend on here.  Culture matters to me.  I study cultural phenomenon as an academic, but my interest in culture has become very personal over the past few years.  I belong to two of them -- depending on how you slice it.  I was born an American by circumstance, but I don't feel like one most of the time.  I'm not jingoistic; sometimes, patriotic.  Not proud.  Lucky, maybe.  I'm an African-American, though to say that generations back actually lived there is anyone's guess.  (Though, I suppose if our human evolution is correct, then we're all African, aren't we?)  I'm Greek on my mother's side.  I recently changed my name so that I have no middle name and both an American and a Greek surname. 

Culture refers to patterns of human behavior and symbolic structuralism.  Culture is manifested through lifestyle, music, art, theatre, mass media, politics, and social norms (Wikipedia.org).  But what makes culture an incredibly powerful social phenomenon is the means by which we relate to these social, political, and personal events.  We have culture and we are cultural in our existence.  How we think, feel, act, and behave in accordance or in resistance to the values that change and become passed on creates an intricately wonderful social tapestry. 

The idea behind Culture UP! is that we become to develop a more intricate understanding of culture once we ask ourselves really tough questions about why we think the way we do, how we learned about ourselves along the way, and what we hope to pass on.  I encourage readers and article writers to think freely and to write honestly, and to create an environment for learning. 

I look forward to the development of this project.  Please feel free to contribute. 

Sincerely,
Dee Hill Zuganelli
blog writer, Brainsplitter

"Hands Globe" art credit to Kwintessential.co.uk.