To analyze the culture–civilization relationship—extending from the earliest civilizations through the Enlightenment and into globalization—by way of communication technologies, symbolic forms, regimes of knowledge, and media infrastructures. The course aims for students to understand contemporary social institutions from a “historical construction” perspective, especially by relating them to communication theories (Innis–McLuhan, Williams, Hall), memory studies (Assmann), world-systems analysis (Wallerstein), and the longue durée approach (Braudel).

Beginning with the theoretical debate on the concept of civilization, it examines how communication technologies and knowledge apparatuses have transformed social institutions across the historical continuum from Antiquity to the global media order of the digital age.