Barthes and Lotman: Ideology vs culture

Author(s): Patrick Sériot / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2016

Despite both being great names in semiotics, Roland Barthes and Juri Lotman have more differences than they share similarities – not only because of their different political and historico-cultural environments, but also because they do not have the same object of study: it is ‘ideology’ for Barthes, and ‘culture’ for Lotman. Thus, there is no intellectual common ground between them, yet comparing them can lead us to a more important question: what is semiotics, and what has structuralism to do with it?

Basic Concepts: A Cognitive Approach

Author(s): Wiesław Walentukiewicz / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2019

Batıl İnançların Korku Sinemasındaki Yansımaları

Author(s): Cumhur Okay Özgör / Language(s): Turkish Issue: 9/2020

Since the existence of mankind’s fears, helplessness, despair, loneliness has led to various superstitions. Superstitions continue their adventures even from modern times to the present day by being fed by the helplessness of human beings against nature. Outside human nature, society; heretic culture, pagan beliefs, folklore, tradition / tradition, rituals, mythology; Christianity, which is influenced by male hegemony, the dominant power in the Middle Ages, the Puritan consciousness and superstitions. While various superstitions such as black cat, evil eye and ladder reach universal dimensions, human psychology and historical events can be given as examples of the factors shaping superstitions. Psychology and psychiatry, as well as the historical origins of superstitions, have been guiding in explaining these beliefs; it will be the art that makes superstitious beliefs easier to grasp, making them immortal images. Visual arts, such as painting and cinema, are among the most important artistic productions directed towards symbolic, metaphoric expressions. This study examines the relationship between visual arts such as cinema and painting and phenomena such as rituals, mythology and superstitions. In particular, superstitions in horror cinema will be researched.

Behram Beyzayi Sinemasında Kadın İmgesine Bir Bakış: “Başu, Küçük Yabancı” Örneği

Author(s): Mehmet Aytekin / Language(s): Turkish Issue: 9/2020

When the social dynamics of pre-revolution and post-revolution era are examined, the existence of transition process is remarkable and it is seen that there is an uncertainty. In the ongoing process, this situation is reflected in the cinema, it is understood that “male gaze” and the efforts of patriarchal ideology to shape the cinema have a negative effect the representation of woman. Pre-revolution era, in the process of representation, the woman who put up a good fight against to exhibitionism, at postrevolution era was forced to veil oneself by the effects of Islamization movement, and thus the cinematic representation is adversely affected. In Bahram Beizai’s cinema, a oppostional reading is developed for the mainstream female myth that patriarchal ideology deals with in both periods, and this form of reading becomes continuous both pre-revolution and post-revolution era. In order to makes the claim, Bahram Beizai’s Bashu, Gharibeye Koochak (Bashu, Little Stranger - 1989) movie is taken as a sample and cinematographic analysis method is adopted through feminist literature. In this context, the counter-myths created by Beizai are embodied by the sequences supporting the narrative and the theoretical background of feminist critical discourse analysis is utilized in the process.

Between emotion, imagination and cognition: Play as a hybrid neuro-evolutionary concept in bridging Saussure, Hegel and Alexander von Humboldt

Author(s): Jui-Pi Chien / Language(s): English Issue: 2-3/2015

This study seeks to discover hidden links between Saussure’s Third Course of Lectures on General Linguistics, Hegel’s Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics / Philosophy of Mind and Alexander von Humboldt’s Cosmos. To begin with, the notion of play is employed to examine the interplay between our emotion, imagination and cognition, and to examine how such a composite of faculties serves to unify conceptualizations of communicationmodelling systems, philosophical hermeneutics and moral psychology in our times. At discovering a certain future-oriented and symbiotic scheme of time implied in these theories, the inquiry moves on to engage with certain perspectives on the evolution of our verbal and nonverbal capacities.

Between Fact and Fiction

Author(s): Dinda L. Gorlée / Language(s): English Issue: 15/2015

Reviewing the theory of the first chapter via some practical examples reveals considerable information about the process of translation and the emergent types of “translation”. The notion of “amusement” suggests that the present objects or events can be turned into pleasant artifacts to everyone’s entertainment. The entertainment of “sacred” rituals aff ords the readers or spectators the factual but at the same time the intensely sensuous dream of the blissful illusion created by the objects d’arts in the audience. The public world, driven by the spectacle of fine arts, excites the admiration, wonder, and enchantment of the ritual festivity. The human and social interest of “amusement” comes from (and is filled with) the sentiment and speculation of Peirce’s primary idea of “musement”. Musement is the private conversation with one’s self, an auto-meditation described proverbially in Peirce’s “aesthetic contemplation, or that of distant castle-building (whether in Spain or within one’s own moral training)” (CP: 6.458). Both extremes of amusement and musement in arts intermingle the public imagery with the musing reveries of the actual person. The dialogue involves the three components of the sign, embodied in the spectator or listener, giving the beliefs or opinions about the qualities of the artwork.

Between nothing and a promise of eternity. Reading Alain Badiou’s Black: The brilliance of a non-color

Author(s): Kristina Khutsishvili / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2018

The book explores narratives of black: brings black into different contexts, compares it with white and other colours of spectrum, reflects on the underneath meanings hidden by black. It is a piece of art that is difficult to be classified by genre: it may be a collection of short stories, an autobiography, an essay. Belonging to both literary and philosophic contexts, this book is not “heavy”, both literally and metaphorically, but filled with unusual observations and reflections on meanings hidden behind the colours.

Bio/biblio-graficznie

Author(s): Stanisław Rosiek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 15/2020

The easiest option would be to ask the author of The Cinnamon Shops whether it was him who many years ago wrote in German and published in the Montenegro periodical Cetinjer Zeitung two stories: “Du bist Staub” and “Pfennig mit dem Auge.” Had he said “yes,” these two unusual narratives would be included in the oeuvre of Bruno Schulz. His literary identity would have been upheld (enhanced) and confirmed. But what is the literary identity? We know full well that the foundation of an individual identity is memory which selects and integrates the particles of a particular existence. There is no identity without memory. This, however, does not apply to the literary identity, deprived of that natural basis of each identity, both individual and collective. Its foundation is congruence, i.e. the coherence, harmony, and appropriateness of its components. Trouble begins when all of a sudden we come across a text signed with a name that already exists in the literary space, and this is exactly what happened when after one hundred years two German language stories from the Cetinjer Zeitung have been retrieved. An automatic inclusion of the stories in the literary identity signed “Bruno Schulz” seems risky for many reasons. First of all, because some stranger may invade the space occupied by the son of a Drogobych cloth merchant, the actual author of The Cinnamon Shops. Let us then defend the Schulz of Drogobych from the Schulzes who come from different parts of the world, and they are many. In the first three decades of the 20th century those were, e.g., Karl Richard Bruno Schulz (1865-1932, professor of architecture), Bruno Claus Heinrich Schulz (1888-1944, oceanographer), Bruno Schulz (engineer, fleet officer),Bruno Schulz (1890-1958, psychiatrist, genetician), Bruno Kurt Schultz (1901-1997, anthropologist, in the Third Reich an SS “race” expert), and Bruno Schultz (1894-1987, economist).

Biopolitical subjectification

Author(s): Ott Puumeister / Language(s): English Issue: 1-2/2019

The article proposes a semiotic interpretation of the concept of biopolitics. Instead of a politics that takes “life itself ” as its object and, as a result, separates life as an object from subjects, biopolitics is read as subjectification – a governmental rationality that constructs social ways of being and forms of life, that is, social subjectivities. The article articulates this position on the basis of two concepts: Jakob von Uexküll’s umwelt and Michel Foucault’s dispositive. While the former makes it possible to show that the process of life can be conceptualized as subjectification, the latter enables us to argue against an interpretation of biopolitics as a totalized structure of power intervening directly, without semiotic mediation, into “life itself ”.

BIOSEMIOTISKA INFORMĀCIJA: JĀKOBS FON IKSKILS UN GREGORIJS BEITSONS

Author(s): Toms Stepiņš / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 1/2020

A tendency in the contemporary field of biosemiotics, following the so-called informational turn in philosophy, is an attempt to explain the fundamental nature of communication by abstracting from mere organic processes to the more basic phenomena of information processing. This informational reduction has turned out to be a critical theoretical move in different fields of technological sciences as well as in some parts of life sciences. However, the scope and role of this reduction in semiotics and biosemiotics remain controversial; the question whether a sign and semiosis – in art or life – is reducible to abstract information processing and whether this reduction has an explanatory value remains open. The first two parts of this paper are dedicated to an examination of the two most important sources of inspiration for the informational analysis of signs: first, the concept of the surrounding-world (Umwelt) and the model of functional circle devised by the Kantian biologist Jakob von Uexküll and, second, the concept of cybernetic information introduced by the Kantian anthropologist Gregory Bateson. These concepts are used to describe the behaviour of simplistic systems, both artificial such as Braitenberg vehicles and biological such as moths, showing that they capture the interaction between an agent and its environment on a functionally basic level that involves what might be called ontogenetic information, and at the same time implies the curious double signification between the agent and environment or what might be called phylogenetic information. The examination of these notions and the descriptions they allow is completed with a synthesis of both von Uexküll and Bateson’s ideas that yield a minimalistic concept of biosemiotic information (or Uexküll-Bateson information) – a concept that, albeit minimalistic, can be considered a fundamental part and a point of reference for further and more complex elaborations on the topic of biosemiotic information. The last part of this paper explores the utility of the concept of Uexküll-Bateson information briefly examining its methodological implications that might rule out an anthropomorphic bias, and, on a more critical note, draws attention to its explanatory power that, due to the concept’s abstract and somewhat metaphysical nature, might turn out to be insignificant, hindering any attempts of informational reduction in biosemiotics stemming from this or essentially similar concepts.

Blends and connective modeling in mathematics

Author(s): Marcel Danesi,Mariana Bockarova / Language(s): English Issue: 14/2014

As mentioned briefly in the opening chapter, it was Max Black (1962) who put forward the notion that scientific models are basically metaphors or the result of metaphorical thinking. Science, as Black elaborated, is essentially an attempt to render visible those things we can never see with our eye – atoms, sound waves, gravitational forces, magnetic fields, etc. The trace to this “inner vision” is metaphor. This is why sound waves are said to undulate through empty space like water waves ripple through a still pond; atoms to leap from one quantum state to another; electrons to travel in circles around an atomic nucleus; and so on.

Blocking evil infinites: A note on a note on a Peircean strategy

Author(s): Frederik Stjernfelt / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2015

This brief note considers Peirce’s strategy of terminating potentially evil infinities – concerning relations, continuous predicates, leading principles, habits – by appeal to the Nota Notae principle.

Brand Semiotics and Media Pedagogy

Author(s): Dinko Jukić / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2021

The paper uses the application of semiological analysis to consider the idea of the role of parents in three different media. Since the brand encompasses the concept of idea and symbol, it is analysed from the aspect of marketing semiotics. The paper is based on Barthes' myth theory which we compare with Kapferer's theory of the brand. The significance of the identity construct in the digital game Life is Strange 2, the drama A Doll's House and the graphic novel A Distant Neighbourhood are discussed. The paper compares and interprets marketing with sociology, and semiotics with media pedagogy in an interdisciplinary way. The brand was analysed at the message and sign level. The paper discusses the meaning of the consumer and the meaning of the brand and shows the hidden meaning of the search for identity. All three media will serve as proof that in their discourse they have built brand recognition precisely on the existential and psychological development of the protagonists. It is concluded that marketing communication indirectly influences the formation of consumer perception.

Budismi semiootika I - Tartu-Moskva koolkonna panus: Pjatigorski ja Mäll

Author(s): Andres Herkel / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 17/2020

The article examines Buddhist studies within the Tartu–Moscow school of semiotics. At the beginning of Tartu semiotics there was a pleiad of orientalists and indologists using the semiotic approach for Buddhist studies. Alexander Piatigorsky and Linnart Mäll were important contributors. Piatigorsky and Mäll refrained from using theories and terminology from Western philosophy to interpret Buddhism. However, they used semiotic tools to describe such basic problems as: the hierarchies of thestates of mind; personological classifications; the difference between psyche and consciousness; Buddhist metalanguage and terminology; the term dharma; the impact of texts on the mind; the mechanisms of the production of new texts; zero and infinity as symbols for texts and sates of mind, etc. Their several articles in Tartu semiotics have timeless value for Buddhist studies. With the help of semiotics they were able to successfully deal with texts corresponding simultaneously to different states of consciousness and different levels of interpretation.

Budismi semiootika II. Mõistetest

Author(s): Andres Herkel / Language(s): Estonian Issue: 18/2021

In the previous article (Herkel 2020a), we looked at the contribution of buddhologists in Tartu-Moscow School of semiotics, with emphasis on the works of Aleksandr Pjatigorski and Linnart Mäll. This time we will approach the semiotics of buddhism from a different angle, reviewing some of its basic concepts and their possible equivalents in contemporary semiotics, as well as their necessity for semiotic thinking. The main source used for generating examples and comparisons here is the Nāgārdžuna (ca. 150–250) Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (Root Verses on the Middle Way). Buddhism’s basic concepts and their western counterparts are: (1) Nimitta and lakṣaṇa as major analogies for the term sign; (2) nāmarūpa which is compared to the signified and signifier; (3) prapañca, vikalpa and other sanskrit terms characterizing conceptualization and embedding in concepts; (4) dharma as central concept with many possible translations: teaching, text, universal law, characteristic, psychological element etc.; (5) ) ātman and anātman as basic concepts of selfhood with detailed analysis of its elements and salvation from boundaries of self; 6) the two levels of truth: samvṛti-satya as conventional truth and paramārtha-satya as a higher level of truth; (7) śūnya and śūnyatā, respectively zero and emptiness as a manifestation of the limits of thought.

Bufniţa - simbol al înţelepciunii - siglă a Bibliotecii Judeţene Mureş

Author(s): Maria-Magdalena Fall / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 5/2006

Die Eule gehört zu der Vogelgruppe Strigiformes, und zur Zeit gibt es ca. 215 bekannte verschiedene Arten auf der ganze Welt. Die Eule wurde schon von Aristotel beschrieben aber die erste wissenschaftliche Beschreibung hat Plinius gemacht. Der unverwechselbare Merkmal einer Eule ist das Eulengesicht, das durch den dicken Kopf, die großen, nach vorne gerichteten Augen, den großen Gesichtsschleier und einen kräftigen Hakenschnabel gekennzeichnet ist. Dieses Gesicht lässt sie uns sehr menschlich erscheinen. Sie ist dämmerungs- und nachtaktiv. Sie sind vorzüglich an die nächtliche Lebensweise angepasst, durch den geräuschlose Flug, das scharfe Sehen und das ausezeichnete Hören. Die Eule fasziniert uns, aber löst bei uns gleichzeitig Angst aus. Sie wurde verehrt, gefürchtet, bewundert und vervolgt. Deshalb stellt sich die Eule in Mythos, Volksglauben und Symbolik aller Völker und über alle Zeitepochen in vielen widersprüchlichen und abergläubischen Bilder dar. In Griechenland war die Eule gut angesehen und galt als Weisheitsvogel, ausgewält von der Göttin Athene, der Beschützerin Athens und Göttin der Weisheit. Auf den griechischen Münzen - Tetradrachmen - war der Kopf der Athene auf der Vorderseite abgebildet und auf der Rückseite eine Eule mit Ölzweig. Diese Münzen wurden kurz „Eule“ genannt. In Mytologie und Volksglauben aller Kulturen galten die Eule oft als Dämonen oder Unglücksboten. Von den Angehörigen eines Sterbenden wurde der Nachtvogel als Totenvogel gesehen, der kam, um die Seele des Toten zu holen. Bei den Indianern Nordamerikas, in Teilen Afrikas und Arabiens, in Australien und China wurde die Eule positiv als Mittlerin zwischen den Welten mit der Seelenwanderung in Zusammenhang gebracht. Die Eule kommt auch in Kunst und Literatur vor. Sie wurde gezeichnet, gemalt und bildhauerisch gestaltet von mehreren Künstlern zum Beispiel Michelangelo, Albrecht Dürer, Hieronymus Bosch, Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst, Celestino Piatti, Heide Dahl und andere. Sie kommt in Literatur auch vor, zum Beispiel bei Shakespeare, Homer und Brüder Grimm. Die Eule wird häufig als Symbol der Weisheit mit Doktorhut und Talar oder auch auf Büchern sitzend dargestellt. Viele Schulen, Universitäten, Bibliotheken, Buchhandlungen und Buchverlage haben die Eule als Emblem gewält, so auch die Kreisbibliothek Mureş (Biblioteca Judeţeană Mureş).

C. S. Peirce on the dynamic object of a sign: From ontology to semiotics and back

Author(s): Helmut Pape / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2015

That reality, and in particular the (dynamic) objects of signs, are independent of our thoughts or other representations is a crucial thesis of Peirce’s realism. On the other hand, his semiotics implies the claim that all reality and all real objects are real for us only because of the signs we use. Do these two claims contradict, even exclude, eachother? I will argue that both Peirce’s metaphysics and his semiotics provide a natural via media: a structural account of the openness of processes, featuring transitive relations, connects process ontology implicit in his evolutionary metaphysics and the relational, quasi-inferential features embodied in interpretational sequences of signs. It is shown that Peirce’s notion of a sign, its normative role and his account of the directional force of objects implies a sort of logical causality that supports the unity of objects. In this way sign sequences are able to relate flexibly sign use with contextually specified independent objects. That is to say, relational properties of object-oriented chains of interpretations provide sign users with a flexible, fallibilistic instrument able to capture by contingent identity relations (teridentity) of the identity of objects in changing situations.

Can linguistics and semiotics conceive man without language?

Author(s): Emanuele Fadda / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2022

Saussure’s refusal to adopt a biological perspective in linguistics and to consider the problem of the origin of language does not imply a struggle against the natural and biological aspects of language. Rather, it derives from the awareness that it is impossible to look at language “from the outside” if one wants (as Saussure considers obligatory for the linguist) to drop into the perspective of the speaking subjects. This tendency to consider the nature of language “from within” has a strong philosophical importance.v

Can semiotics be used to drive paradigm changes in medical education?

Author(s): John Tredinnick-Rowe / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2018

This essay sets out to explain how educational semiotics as a discipline can be used to reform medical education and assessment. This is in response to an ongoing paradigm shift in medical education and assessment that seeks to integrate more qualitative, ethical and professional aspects of medicine into curricula, and develop ways to assess them. This paper suggests that a method to drive this paradigm change might be found in the Peircean idea of suprasubjectivity. This semiotic concept is rooted in the scholastic philosophy of John of St Th omas, but has been reintroduced to modern semiotics through the works of John Deely, Alin Olteanu and, most notably, Charles Sanders Peirce. I approach this task as both a medical educator and a semiotician. In this paper, I provide background information about medical education, paradigm shift s, and the concept of suprasubjectivity in relation to modern educational semiotic literature. I conclude by giving examples of what a suprasubjective approach to medical education and assessment might look like. I do this by drawing an equivalence between the notion of threshold concepts and suprasubjectivity, demonstrating the similarities between their positions. Fundamentally, medical education suffers from tensions of teaching trainee doctors the correct balance of biological science and situational ethics/ judgement. In the transcendence of mind-dependent and mind-independent being the scholastic philosophy of John of St Thomas may be exactly the solution medicine needs to overcome this dichotomy.