The concept of culture is one of the most successful and most complicated concepts used in current descriptions of the world. It is the contingency formula for modern society: "Almost everything could be different, but you don’t want to change anything." Society reflects upon its circumstances using the concept of culture. It cultivates its differences, compares its situations and evaluates its past, present and future. Society makes itself understood and misunderstood in dealing with itself and thus achieves an understanding of identity and control, tradition and innovation, consensus and dissent.
The chair of cultural theory and analysis views the success of cultural sciences from a sociological perspective. We consider theory as our prime focus, whereas cultural sciences have, to a large extent, forgone work on theory in favor of a large body of different types of descriptions.
First and foremost, cultural theory is the development of an understanding of the function of culture, but also of the concept of culture in the organization and disorganization of society. The chair works on methods of cultural analysis that are based upon the mathematics of difference. Cultural phenomena differ from other phenomena and reflect this difference, deriving opportunities for affirmation and critique. „Draw a distinction, watch its form, work its unrest“- this is the formula, to quote George Spencer-Brown, which cultural analysis utilizes.
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