Showing papers on "Semiosphere published in 2014"
01 Jan 2014
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine Lotman's models of the semiosphere and of semiotic spaces in literature and culture in the context of the spatial turn in cultural studies, and they argue that Lotman’s writings anticipate the "spatial turn" of cultural studies.
Abstract: The purpose of the article is to examine Yuri Lotman’s models of the semiosphere and of semiotic spaces in literature and culture in the context of the spatial turn in cultural studies. It argues that Lotman’s writings anticipate the ‘spatial turn’ in cultural studies. Lotman’s semiosphere is a metaphor, which offers a spatial model for the interpretation of culture. A semiosphere is surrounded by a boundary. Its internal places are discontinuous and heterogeneous as well as homogeneous in some respects. Typical constellations of the locations within the semiosphere are opposition and bipolar asymmetry. Furthermore, the semiosphere is a space which can in some respects include itself in a way in which the included space is an icon of the including space. The article shows that Lotman’s topography of the semiosphere has undergone a change from a structuralist to a post-structuralist conception of culture.
15 citations
TL;DR: The analogy between semi-world of cultures and biosphere (world of life) was coined by J. Lotman as mentioned in this paper, who argued that the only possible general definition of life is a system born, endowed with semiosis, with history.
Abstract: The analogy between semiosphere (world of cultures) and biosphere (world of life), coined by J. Lotman, is a courageous attempt to interconnect two seemingly incompatible worlds. In congruence with his view, I would like to convince the reader that the only possible general definition of life is “a system born, endowed with semiosis, with history”. Such a view requires considering biosphere and semiosphere as coextensive, which requires merging the cultural, scientific, historical, and linguistic approaches into a coherent whole.
14 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the main positions of the Theses of the Tartu-Moscow School and compare them to Lotman's concept of the semiosphere are reviewed, and the importance of space in semiotic theory is discussed.
Abstract: Space, in the environmental sense, holds a rather marginal position in semiotics. We shall try, however, to show in this paper that its importance is greater than thought previously, not only because it may establish one of the main sub-fields of semiotic research, but also because it has repercussions on other semiotic systems and even semiotic theory as such. We start by reviewing the main positions of the Theses of the Tartu-Moscow School and compare them to Lotman’s concept of the semiosphere. We conclude that a sociologically sound framework for culture is missing and try to demonstrate that culture is not the only factor composing a society, but there also exists a concept of a material, extra-semiotic society. This framework is systematically developed in relation to geographical space in our second section. We examine the place of space in semiotics according to two different axes of analysis. Th e first axis, discussed in our third section, corresponds to the semiotics of (geographical) space. We approach this field from two different perspectives. The first perspective is the direct study of urban space as a text, that is, it is focused on space-as-text. Three case studies are discussed, all drawn from pre-capitalist societies: the semiotic urban model in ancient Greece, the Ethiopian military camp and the spatial organization of the traditional Libyan oases. To the second perspective corresponds the semiotic study of the geographical spaces constructed by literary texts, that is, space-in-text. Here, we discuss two case studies: the ideal Platonic city and the medieval Arthurian courtly romances. These analyses are followed by an overview of the semiotics of space in pre-capitalist societies, to which we compare Lotman’s views. The second axis, discussed in our fourth section, concerns the importance of space for semiotic theory. We show that space can serve as a tool for the analysis of texts from other semiotic systems and focus on the use of space by different spatial metalanguages.
12 citations
TL;DR: This work aims to analyze the relations between psychology as social engineering and self-reflective citizenship from a historiogenetic point of view, taking into account the mismatches due to the new global, multicultural, and technological conditions.
Abstract: This work aims to analyze the relations between psychology as social engineering and self-reflective citizenship from a historiogenetic point of view. Such a connection was founded during modernity; hence our proposal is to study its operative continuity in the postmodern world, taking into account the mismatches due to the new global, multicultural, and technological conditions. Based both on the theory of activity and the concept of semiosphere, the interaction and discussions of a group of Spanish students of psychology in a virtual forum were analyzed. They were asked to negotiate and co-construct their double condition of citizens and future psychologists in connection with the controversial exhibition of religious symbols in Spanish schools. Results show that students segregate both conditions. On one hand, they agree and consolidate the neutral image of a professional psychologist being respectful with the multicultural world. On the other hand, they argue about the citizen and religious topics from a personal or ideological point of view, establishing limits to multiculturalism. Neither the interchange of ideas nor the writing-reading features of the virtual artefacts improved the reflexivity on the close dependencies and contradictions of the two identity domains. This great resilience is due to a sociocultural context –the Western World- where psychology has been constituted as a neutral, objective Science World, one of whose socio-historical products - reflective citizenship- has evolved until proclaiming his/her autonomous agency, forgetting any root in the social engineering.
12 citations
Journal Article•
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the semiotics of social memory in the city of Volgograd (Stalingrad), the landscape of which appeals to a most significant historical event -the Great Patriotic War (World War II) and can be conveniently described by means of Ch. S. Anderson's classification of signs in which icons include signs denoting war heroes and represented by their sculptural images; symbols are represented by toponymy signs characterized by the connotations of heroic deeds.
Abstract: Social memory as a kind of collective memory is connected with the strategies and practices of perpetuating the memory about important events, and city as a commemorative space can be viewed as a sign and as a text. The semiotic means encoding social phe- nomena and events represent the system of denotation, while the ways of place naming represent the culturally conditioned system of connotation operating behind the denotation code. The semiotics of social memory was examined by the example of the city of Volgograd (Stalingrad), the landscape of which appeals to a most significant historical event - the Great Patriotic War (World War II) - and can be conveniently described by means of Ch. S. Peirce's classification of signs in which icons include signs denoting war heroes and represented by their sculptural images; indices include signs denot- ing artifacts associated with the war events; symbols are represented by toponymy signs characterized by the connotations of heroic deeds; all these signs representing cultural and political values specific for the Volgograd society. The semiotic density of social memory repre- sentation may be considered a ground for shaping the city's 'imagined community' (the term suggested by B. Anderson, 1983) of a particular kind. Keyword: Social memory, Historical memory, Imagined community, City-text, Semiotic code, Toponymy. about the semiotic approach to urbanistic stud- ies two directions can be taken into account: the structural analysis of sign systems which focuses upon their interrelationships in the semiosphere of the city, and the phenomeno- logical analysis of sign processes emphasizing the role of the human environment (umwelt) in the use of signs which causes changes in the urban landscape. The semiotic approach to the urban landscape studies in various aspects is regarded fruitful in the research of many scholars (Barthes, 1982; Greimas, 1986; Jachna, 2004; Kostof, 1991; Rose-Redwood
9 citations
TL;DR: The role of the Tartu semiotics school in the formation of the new academic field called semiotics of culture, particularly in the context of writing the Theses on the Semiotic Study of Cultures in 1973, is described in this article.
Abstract: Abstract The article describes the role of the Tartu semiotics school in the formation of the new academic field called semiotics of culture, particularly in the context of writing the Theses on the Semiotic Study of Cultures in 1973. Special attention is paid to the typology of languages of culture, and to the concept of culture as an object for semiotics.
3 citations
01 Jan 2014
TL;DR: In this article, the projection of rhythmic self-realization of cultural and historical context in an ornament is analyzed, and it is shown that an ornament can be interpreted as a symbol of a person's life.
Abstract: The cultural field where symbols create integrity continuum of the cultural and historical text and a context of a person's life is defined as: “semiosphere” (Iu.M.Lotman), “noosphere” (T.De Chardin, V.I.Vernadsky), “cogitosphere”, “spiritosphere” (V.P.Zinchenko). The article analyzes the projection of rhythmic self-realization of cultural and historical context in an ornament.
3 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors take three examples of the recent Slovene politicized post- or retro-avant-garde big stage events in order to discuss their rhetorics and politics of space.
Abstract: The essay takes three examples of the recent Slovene politicized post- or retro-avant-garde big stage events in order to discuss their rhetorics and politics of space. It examines closely to which extent they can be interpreted as a contemporary version of rituals referring to the performative spatial signs as representations of the Slovene cultural space’s ever changing late- and post-socialist identity. Performed in some symbolic places within the territory of the capital of Ljubljana (The Republic Square, the biggest cultural and congress centre Cankarjev dom) these big scale events confirm and subvert the cultural identity of the community. They traverse the borderlines within the semiosphere of a cultural capital in which peripheries begin to synthesize new texts and introduce innovative ideas that are foreign and unknown to the centre and that might possibly act as catalysts for change. Using signs from peripheries these artistic events generate new meanings, structures and texts that invade the centre. We can interpret this procedure as an animated, dynamic process of the performance: a spatial machine characterized by parallel passages from real to formalized space, from frontal to circular and multi-centred space. Borders of the semiosphere that are originally used in order to separate and create identities, thus also connect and construct these identities by juxtaposing the own and the alien. By appropriating relations between spatial signs in different historical periods of Ljubljana they culturally present and deconstruct the past and present while using postmodern performative reading of objects of the past and present, intermixing and compounding art/theatre/film/music/literature/ballet/sports models. Thus they radically blur the borderline between real and fictive experience.
2 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider the tension created in journalism by the emergence of social networks in the processes of the social construction of reality and propose a possible synthesis about this moment of crisis: 1) the way journalism presents the events; 2) the possibilities and implications offered by the networks to the more ample dynamics of journalism.
Abstract: his article ponders the tension created in journalism by the emergence of social networks in the processes of the social construction of reality. The focuses are the events kindled by the Indignados movement in Spain in 2012, during the “25S” protests, which called for a new constituent assembly. Waiter Alberto Casillas stole the scene by facing police truculence, and that had a great repercussion in the networks, attracting the attention of international journalism. There are two points of view which, when compared, lead to a possible synthesis about this moment of crisis: 1) the way journalism presents the events; 2) the possibilities and implications offered by the networks to the more ample dynamics of journalism. C. S. Peirce’s concept of semiosis is the basis of the reflective effort, along with a systemic view inspired by the Semiotics of Culture – especially as in Yuri Lotman. It is postulated that in the contemporary semiosphere, in which complex processes of semiosis set off by events from the chaotic reality are unfolded, journalism has to review its practices, under pain of losing the legitimacy it has acquired throughout history as a mediator of a certain kind of knowledge.
1 citations
01 Jan 2014
TL;DR: In this article, the authors call music only some of these ways of integration, i.e., sounds are integrated in multiple ways in the semi-osphere, following conventional crite ria.
Abstract: Though semiotics cannot explain music as a whole, sounds are integrated in multiple ways in the semiosphere. Following conventional crite ria, we call music only some of these ways of integration. Between other possibilities of the musical semiosis, 19th century opera allows music
01 Jan 2014
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors evaluate the necessities of cultural strategic management on the basis of Juri Lotman's theory of Semiosphere and show how cultural context of society change due to establishing cultural spaces and institutions.
Abstract: The present study aims to evaluate necessities of cultural strategic management on the basis of Juri Lotman's theory of Semiosphere Also, it is to show how cultural context of society change due to establishing cultural spaces and institutions When cultures encounter each other, culture dynamism takes place In another word, cultural reproduction deeply comes to being when there are significant inter cultural communications This paper applies a library method The linguistic claims of Lotman in his theory may be considered constructively regarding cultural encounters
Journal Article•
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors evaluate the necessities of cultural strategic management on the basis of Juri Lotman's theory of Semiosphere and show how cultural text of society change due to establishing cultural spaces and institutions.
Abstract: The paper aims to evaluate necessities of cultural strategic management on the basis of Juri Lotman's theory of Semiosphere. Also, it is to show how cultural text of society change due to establishing cultural spaces and institutions. When cultures encounter each other, culture dynamism takes place. In another word, cultural reproduction deeply comes to being when there are significant inter cultural communications. This paper applies a library method. The linguistic claims of Lotman in his theory may be considered constructively regarding cultural encounters. DOI: 10.5901/jesr.2014.v4n5p9