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The Practice of Signs: Semiotics as a research subject, a methodological toolbox, and a creative endeavor

Fabio Rambelli, University of California, Santa Barbara

Thu, 2/13 · 4:30 pm6:00 pm · 202 Jones Hall

Humanities Council; Department of East Asian Studies

The third talk in a lecture series on Introducing Interpretive Semiotics, for the Humanities and Social Sciences.

This lecture will discuss three different aspects and possibilities of application of semiotics as a wide, open terrain of intervention. Semiotics is primarily a discipline that studies sense-making, that is, the study of how living entities make sense of the world and themselves and how they communicate; this involves, essentially, an analysis of the creative manipulations of material entities (objects, sounds, and other sensorial stuff) to combine them with thoughts and emotions. All human cultures have developed more or less explicit forms of semiotic thought; its study is part of general philosophy or of cultural analysis; in this sense, this is the study of conceptualizations. However, semiotics is not only a discipline that studies theories (of signification, representation, and communication); it is also a collection of methodological tools to help us make sense of the world and of ourselves—or to study how other human societies (or particular groups or individuals) have constructed and represented themselves and others; a growing body of research suggests that other beings too (animals and perhaps even plants) are involved in semiotic practices. At this level, semiotics provides us with interpretive tools for the study of culture. Finally, semiotics also offers us materials and insights that help us give shape to thoughts and emotions and express them, and also to create representations of the world, of oneself, and of others. In this form, semiotics is directly related to artistic creation and creativity more generally. The lecture will also provide case studies of these three aspects of semiotics based on the lecturer’s own research and creative endeavors in the field of Japanese religious culture.

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