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The article presents a paper on culture and cultural analysis as experimental systems. The growth of cultural analysis is traced from the start of modern anthropology to the present. It is argued that culture is relational rather than variable, and consists of central anthropological forms of knowledge which ground the self-understanding of humans. The challenge posed by cultural analysis, it is proposed, is to develop mediation and translation tools for helping resolve cultural differences.

The article responds to the paper "Learning From New Orleans: The Social Warrant of Hostile Privatism and Competitive Consumer Citizenship," by George Lipsitz in this issue. The author uses Lipsitz's methodology of critique to strengthen the consciousness of countermemories and alternative social warrants. It is pointed out that learning to listen brings in all the harmonics, virtuosities and counterpoints.

The article responds to the paper "Learning From New Orleans: The Social Warrant of Hostile Privatism and Competitive Consumer Citizenship," by George Lipsitz in this issue. The author considers Lipsitz's work in relation to ethnographic efforts to analyze the characteristics of the complex changes in everyday life. The concept of social warrant is considered to be linked to cultural activism and critique.

The article presents an introduction to the papers discussed during the 2005 Culture at Large Forum, which focused on who to reinvigorate debates regarding the studies of the struggles over the social warrants of American culture in the 21st century.

The article responds to the paper "Learning From New Orleans: The Social Warrant of Hostile Privatism and Competitive Consumer Citizenship," by George Lipsitz in this issue. The politics of dislocation and relocation and the politics of different mappings of the U.S. are examined. Rap music and murals are declared to be forms of an American cultural critique that employs symbolic-iconic registers and direct political consciousness.