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Suites Culturelles is a cultural analysis blog in Montréal, Berlin, and beyond.

“Culture is the sum of all the forms of art, of love, and of thought, which, in the course of centuries, have enabled (wo)man to be less enslaved.” (Andre Malraux)

“Culture is the cultivating or development of the mind, faculties, manners, tastes etc.; improvement or refinement by education and training.” (Oxford English Dictionary)

Culture is a world conception and the values, moral norms and actual behaviour – as well as material and immaterial results thereof – which people take over from a past generation, which they – possibly in a modified form – seek to pass on to the next generation; and which in various ways make them different from people belonging to other cultures. (Hans Gullenstrup, Cultural Analysis – Towards cross-cultural understanding. Aalborg University Press, 2006, p.23)

The concept of culture, no matter how difficult it is to pinpoint, is an essential approach to an understanding of human self-knowledge – of human identity – as well as human social interaction and co-action. (Hans Gullenstrup, Cultural Analysis – Towards cross-cultural understanding. Aalborg University Press, 2006, p.50)

Culture is both an agent and a product of the relationship between the city and its inhabitants, negotiated with each generation. (Charles W. Haxthausen, Berlin: Culture and Metropolis. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1990. p.xiv)