Abstract

This paper proposes a theoretical framework for the study of cultural adaptation. A subfield within the larger field of cultural evolution, cultural adaptation is defined as the purposeful remediation of cultural artefacts into different (artistic, social, historical) contexts. My proposal combines insights from two distinct fields, extended evolutionary studies in the sciences and cultural adaptation studies in the humanities. The collaboration between these fields, I argue, has been hampered by neo-Darwinian reductionism and the false meme-gene analogy, on the scientific side, and a long-standing bias against statistical-quantitative approaches to culture, on the humanities side. Instead of a hierarchical approach that looks for core-units of culture (i.e., memes), I propose a relationist approach inspired by an Extended Evolutionary Synthesis that analyzes the dynamic network of interrelated products, processes, and receptions by which artistic material is continually refitted into different forms for new audiences. The paper is divided into two parts. The first part introduces scientific theories of cultural evolution, while the second part switches perspectives to the humanist study of cultural adaptations in the field of Adaptation Studies. As my title suggest, I shall use a series of theses to advance my argument throughout the paper.