/lit/ - Literature

>>16173587
Plutarch's Lives
Apology, Phaedo and Crito
The Gospel of Matthew
The Book of Job
Genesis and Exodus

The Harvard Classics series is pretty based too

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Classics

>>16173587
That's a great list but the translations are too old fashioned. I own the Plato and feel I should have bought one of the newer Penguin translations. Lots of old timey grammer.

homer
sophocles
bible
virgil
dante
shakespeare
de cervantes
goethe
melville
dostoyevski
that's it

My fucking diary desu

>>16173618
>no philosophy or science

>>16173644
yea i count those separately from general 'culture'. someone only interested in culture would waste their time reading primary philosophical and scientific works. these require an independent interest in the relevant tradition

It's not so much books that you need to read, but people. Plato, Aristotle, Xenophon, Plutarch, Cato, Seneca, Cicero, and Montaigne.

>>16173587
If you want a firmer grasp on Western culture, I'd say:
Homer
Plato (Alcibiades I, Phaedo, Gorgias, Phaedrus, Republic, Symposium, Theatetus, Sophist, Statesman, Philebus, parmenides, Timaeus, Cratylus, and Laws most importantly, I'd say)
Aristotle (metaphysics, categoriae (or the whole Organon, if you'd like), ethics most importantly)
Plotinus' Enneads
Corpus Hermetica
St. Augustine's Confessions (optionally On Free Choice of the Will)
Genesis, Exodus, the four gospels
St. Aquinas' Summa Theologica or Summa contra Gentiles, I can't decide which to suggest
Vico's New Science - THIS one might be what you're really looking for with regards to the study of culture generally, but the rest of these provide the backdrop

You should probably read Seneca before St. Augustine and possibly even the Enneads, but I haven't and therefore can't suggest you do with any authority.

>>16173605
These are eurocenteric

>>16173618
Anglocentric

>>16173734
No such thing as western culture.

>>16173774
Culture is eurocentric

>>16173774
>No such thing as western culture.
Name a more comprehensive and useful critical framework to understanding the collection of cultures continuously derived and expanding from Greco/Roman/Christian philosophy in the geographically "Western" part of the Eurasian continent. How many of the books on that list have you read?

>>16173823
>Christian
That's semitic/akkadian/middle eastern, not western

>>16173844
Again, how many books on that list have you read? St. Augustine and Aquinas are on that list explicitly to outline how Christianity came to be married with Greek and Roman Philosophy in the Western part of the Eurasian continent in a very distinct manner when compared to the near/middle East. If that makes it somehow no longer "Christian" in your mind, then I'd argue you're a pedant, because both sides adapted Christianity differently. It's an entirely different tradition to the East, and if you wanted to study it you'd be better studying Byzantine and Islamic thinkers.

>>16173587
>anyone interested in culture
Negro, what the fuck does that even mean?

>>16173587
AI is surpassing us in every endeavor. Get a grip.

>>16173618
If you’re American you should read Mark Twain and Steinbeck
If you’re European you might as well swap out the Bible for the Quran

>>16173907
Is Buddhism Western because modern Westerners adapted it and patched it to fit Western values? Do you just do away with the fact that its origin, core, and natural foundation is foreign? The core of Christianity is the bible and that's not "Western" regardless of how much medieval thinkers tried (and failed) to reconcile the incompatible traditions.

>>16173938
>If you’re American you should read White Fragility and The Autobiography of Malcolm X
fixed

>>16173644
Unimportant of you’re just talking about culture retard

>>16173774
>Anglocentric
>has 2 anglos

>>16173950
Western Buddhism is western, yes. Acknowledging that it is Buddhism in its name is sufficient acknowledgement that it came from Buddhism, whose origin could have been the moon for all intents and purposes. You seem, indeed, to be a pedant who can only to split hairs and muddy the waters of any kind of analysis, turning all useful terms to a kind of mush to which your mushy brain can more easily relate.

>>16173991
>your mushy brain can more easily relate.
Sorry, but you're the one oversimplifying concepts to help you build a simple but flawed system that you can grasp.

>>16173774
Was this entire thread started with the intention of baiting

>>16174014
Interesting, please do share your own list of literature which better traces the threads of Western Eurasian cultural and philosophical thought. You assert that the adaptations and interpretations of Christianity thus presented did not play a fundamental role? Please, enlighten me. You're more concerned with the origins than the applications? Please, do justify this position pragmatically as it regards the study of Western Eurasian culture specifically. Convince me that a Western cultural anthropologist ought to focus his energies more on semitic and near eastern cultures any more than is absolutely necessary to grasp the fundamental nature of the cultural imports thereof. You've done a shoddy job of it, so far.

>>16173587
ša naqba īmuru
Enûma Eliš
rw nw prt m hrw
Tanakh
Hē Kainḕ Diathḗkē
al-Qurʼān
Plátōn
Aristotélēs
Pāli Canon
Kǒng Fūzǐ
ṛgvedaḥ
Shakespeare
Hómēros

>>16174087
Western culture doesn't exist. There's Greco-Roman culture with its continuation into Enligthenment/Classical Liberalism, Colonialism, and Romanticism/Fascism; there's Judaic culture which includes Abrahamic tradition and its continuation into Marxism and its off-shots; there's American culture that's a syncretism of Greco-Roman culture, Judaic culture, and Subsaharan culture; there's Chinese culture, etc. The term Western culture (or "white culture") is a historical revisionism attempt to equate American culture with Greco-Roman culture and thus "muddy the waters of any kind of analyis."

>>16174180
So you're not even disagreeing with me? It's a purely semantic argument, wherein you've decided on a definition of "Western" that inexplicably includes America? A country whose culture you'll note I do not mention or reference even once? Pardon me for preferring "Western" to "Greco-Roman culture with its continuation into Enligthenment/Classical Liberalism, Colonialism, and Romanticism/Fascism," you fucking pseud. You'd have been well aware that was the culture to which I was referring if you had read even a single one of the books I suggested comprised the "Western" canon.

>>16173774
Shakespeare and Melville weren't Anglos, they were honorable Continentals. Please refrain from using the term Anglo, it lumps together creative geniuses like Wordsworth and Blake with literal subhumans like Mill and Spencer

>>16174258
Why do you have so much resentment towards anglos, did some chav fuck your girlfriend

>>16174160
rigveda would never be spelled ऋग्वेदः

>>16174296
I've never had a girlfriend and Anglos (bad type of them, likes of Russell, Dewey, Mill, political economists in general) are responsible for the destruction of Western culture

>>16173931
No one cares, faggot

>>16173950
>Is Buddhism Western because modern Westerners adapted it and patched it to fit Western values?
You know that Buddhism was introduced to the east through white, Western invaders from Europe, right?

>>16174244
You put Christianity in there buddy. My first post was this >>16173844

>>16173774
>These are eurocenteric
So, kinda like reality? Good

>>16174765
It wasn't, retard, it was introduced during Tang dynasty when the West was the laughing stock of the world getting cucked by Islam

>>16175059
Yeah, because it makes sense to think about Roman and enlightenment era culture without Christianity (specifically Christianity interpreted through the lens of earlier Greek/Roman culture and philosophy), you're right. Guess I was the brainlet all along!

>>16173774
I really hope this is bait, if not please neck yourself you fucking looney troon

>>16173587
not a joke question

but anybody on here knows good books on kibbutzs and their history?
I had always kinda known about them but I find the idea very interesting and want to know more about them

I can get all the books, but I need the names of the ones you think are good

>>16175083
Buddhism is traced to the Shakya clan, an Indian peoples who can be tied to the Scythian and Saxon indo-European language groups. European peoples invaded India around 1500-1700 BC, meaning it's likely that the Shakya are derived from Aryan, indo-European Scythians. There was also an Oseberg, Sweden buddha dating to 840 AD which seems to have been imported from either Ireland or England as its origin.

>>16175107
Stop replying to me with your passive aggressive redditposts when you're obviously a double digit IQ retard

>>16175210
Oh, the irony. Surely my work here is done. Have a nice day, anon.

>>16173587
Re/Search published a great guidebook for industrial culture, and iirc, also for punk. Yes i am taking advantage of your ambiguous use of "culture"

>>16173587
Read The Divine Comedy my nigga

>>16174296
anglos = USA UK CAN AUS NZ

>>16175669
>>16175415
>415▶
>>>16173587 (OP)
>>16175324
>>16175231
>>16175210
>>16175174
>>16175167
>>16175136
>>16175107
>>16175083
>>16175073
>>16175059
>>16174765
>>16174578
>>16174449
>>16174409
>>16174296
>>16174258
>>16174244
>>16174180
>>16174160
>>16174087
>>16174021
>>16174014
>>16173991
>>16173977
>>16173967
>>16173964
>>16173950
>>16173938
>>16173931
>>16173918
>>16173907
>>16173844
>>16173823
>>16173794
>>16173774
>>16173734
>>16173715
>>16173674
>>16173644
>>16173627
>>16173618
>>16173608
>>16173605
>>16173587
have sex

>>16175720
just did thanks

The Doll by Bolesław Prus

>>16173950
Imagine being this ahistorical
Christianity was incredibly romanised before it could become the religion of the Roman empire
It is much closer to greek and Roman philosophical traditions than it is to Judaism

>>16175720
fucking hell bro that was amazing
Have you written good posts like this one lately?
outstanding

>t. dude that actually wants to know about kibutzs

To help salvage the thread
What do you mean by culture anon?
Do you mean cultural traditions like your pic seems to imply?
Do you mean the study of cultures?
Do you mean something else entirely?

>>16175773
>book about jews written by jews
>"incredibly romanised"

>>16175798
Nigger are you retarded?
Interpretation, understanding and application are infinitely more important
Our understanding of Christian concepts and how we applied was shaped by greek philosophy, see the Platonism of the eastern church fathers and more generally Byzantium and then also see the intense study of Aristotle and our Aristotelian framing of the texts
Christianity didn't change the tendencies of the Romans, just their contents
Instead of building stadiums and temples, they now built hospitals and churches
Pre-Constantine Christianity might have been another Judaic sect but from Constantine onward, that tradition of thought was completely annihilated and only remained as an imagined past for later authors and believers

>>16175829
You've no idea. Christianity changed Rome not the other way around. By the time of Constantine, the Roman Empire was verging on collapse; they were powerless to resist let alone change anything.

>>16175855
Continue being ahistorical you worthless nigger or try to read the actual literature on the topic
Peter Brown's Through the eye of the needle and Peter Heather's volumes on the fall of Rome both dispel your retarded bullshit

>>16175872
Ok retard

>>16173774
Dilate

>>16173715
What do you suggest by Cato?

>>16177149
On Agriculture

The autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini

>>16175720
Have sneed

>>16173605
Thanks anon, I'd never heard of the Harvard Classic Series and there's clearly a lot of valuable shit in here.

>>16173587
Hitler invades poland

>>16173587
I remember this set from my childhood. What’s the actual name of it and can I find it online?

>>16175720
Why are you even here, anon?

>>16175855
It's both. They changed each other.

>>16173774
>the bible
>eurocentric
What?

>>16174160
>ša naqba īmuru
>rw nw prt m hrw
>Hē Kainḕ Diathḗkē
In English doc!

KJV Bible (or Vulgate or Greek)
Illiad and Odyssey
Ovid's Metamorphoses
Virgil's Aeneid
The Divine Comedy
Bhagavad Gita
Shakespeare
Don Quixote
Goethe
Dickens (maybe)
Moby Dick
Dostoyevsky
Tolstoy
Proust
Joyce
Kafka
Nabokov
Pynchon
Jeff Kinney

>>16179130
I believe it's Britannica Great Books of the Western World

>>16175720
Reply all posters deserve to have their cock and balls removed.

>>16173587
>>16175791
4chan is unironically a great place to discuss cultural anthropology. The most belligerent boards in particular.

>>16173774
Fuck off, retard

>>16173844
No it isn't. Christianity has spent almost all 2000 years of its history in the European world. Is started in a Roman province. Once the apostles died, there were no more leading Jewish figures in the record. The exclusive Christian Scriptures are written in Greek, a good portion by someone who was most likely a Greek. Most of Northern and Eastern Europe had no self-attested written history before Christianity.
It would also behoove you that religions tend to function this way in general. Buddhism was nearly wiped out in the region it began, and it found it's greatest following in an entirely different cultural sphere. Would you say the Buddhism of Japan and China have none of their own cultural characteristics, like Zen Buddhism? Because you'd be sorely wrong. Or Islam, which has spread with Turks, Indians, and in SEA. Are they all somehow Arabic now?

Welp it's another thread I'm not going to read because of fucking mouth breathing retard mass replying and since I'm on clover I can't hide the fucking post

>>16179417
>Bhagavad Gita
fuck off with this multiculturalim PC shit. Culture means Western

>>16179488
Based

>>16180361
Too bad it's also wrong

>>16179488
>a good portion by someone who was most likely a Greek.
lol

>>16173774
i love how it takes one retard making the most predictable bait response to the op to completely derail the thread

>>16180594
Idk why they're responding to me. I'm not even the OP. I didn't even want people to respond to me.

>>16180594
OP's question was already answered within the first few posts then people proceeded discussing what makes culture and Western culture. There's nothing wrong ITT aside that you should go back.

>>16180270
Cringe bro
It's not about muh multiculturalism
The Bhagavad Gita is actually good

>>16179417
>Proust
>Kafka
>>>/israel/

>>16180270
It influenced Huxley, Thoreau, Oppenheimer, Emerson, Jung, and Hesse among others. It’s always been a notable work.

>>16180894
>copypastes wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhagavad_Gita#Praise_and_popularity
>acts like he knows what he's talking about
Ok pajeet

>>16180972
I’m not Indian, I’m a white American. I don’t see how looking up examples of influence to prove a point is wrong. Where did I claim to be the foremost expert on Hindu scriptures? Read it yourself, it’s not very long.

>>16181056
>prove a point
Influencing a handful of mediocre modern writers doesn't make it a must read in the ranks of Homer, Shakespeare, and Dante, you pathetic fuck

The Denial of Death.

>>16181082 Where did I claim that? I only claimed it could be considered “western” because of influence. Hegel and Schopenhauer even wrote about it, so there are more examples then what I listed. OP wished for “must reads for anyone interested in culture” and the Bhagavad Gita is one of the most important works of Hinduism. Hinduism is the 3rd largest religion in the world, so if you’re interested in culture then it is relevant.

>>16173618
bumping for Virgil and Dante
sidenote - De Monarchia is 80pgs and its well worth

>>16173844
Christianity was both fundamentally Romanised and Germanised
read Dante & St. Augustine for the former or just anything from medieval catholicism
pic related for the latter

>>16181356
>Germanised
Germanics didn't have a culture