Little links the 14 essays beyond an iconoclastic attitude toward the mainstream of a branch of thinking most people have never heard of, and a leaning towards legal matters. Among the topics are constitutive theory, what judges and juries do, class conflict in white America, justice as a iconophobic icon, word play and the challenge of sense, conceptual iconicity and grammatical rules, and the cognitive self and the virtual self. Appended are a conversation with Kevelson and a list of her professional achievements. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The ideal introduction to semiotics, containing engaging essays from an impressive range of international leaders in the field. Featuring an extended glossary of key terms and thinkers as well as suggestions for further reading, this is an invaluable reference guide for students of semiotics at all levels.

The more human knowledge increases, the more signs grow and, with this expansion, the more the boundaries of the science that studies signs also grows. In Semiotics Unbounded, Susan Petrilli and Augusto Ponzio explain the explosion of the sign network in the era of global communication and discuss the important theoretical responses offered by semiotics. Providing a much-needed introductory guide to the subject, Petrilli and Ponzio explore the ever-growing frontiers of semiotics through the thought of prominent sign scholars such as Charles Peirce, Victoria Welby, Mikhail Bakhtin, Charles Morris, and Thomas Sebeok. In an era of global communication, a global approach is necessary, and what may seem to be the whole, is only a part - a view being at once globalizing and open. Each and every sign is never self-sufficient and closed but exists always in a relation of otherness. This is true of the signs forming animals and human beings, individuals and communities, and involves the implication of all living beings in the life of all others. Semiotics Unbounded offers a new and original survey of the science of signs, evaluating it in relation to the problems of our time, not only of a scientific order, but also the problems concerning everyday social life.

The study of semiotics underwent a gradual but radical paradigm shift during the past century, from a glottocentric (language-centered) enterprise to one that encompasses the whole terrestrial biosphere. In this collection of 17 essays, Thomas A. Sebeok, one of the seminal thinkers in the field, shows how this progression took place. His wide-ranging discussion of the evolution of the field covers many facets, including discussions of biosemiotics, semiotics as a bridge between the humanities and natural sciences, semiosis, nonverbal communication, cat and horse behavior, the semiotic self, and women in semiotics. This thorough account will appeal to seasoned scholars and neophytes alike.

Semiotica, the Journal of the International Association for Semiotic Studies, features articles reporting results of research in all branches of semiotic studies and in-depth reviews of selected current literature in the field.

Peirce's (1906) proposal that the universe as a whole, even if it does not consist exclusively of signs, is yet everywhere perfused with signs, is a thesis that better than any other sums up the life and work of Thomas A. Sebeok, "inventor" of semiotics as we know it today. Semiotics - the doctrine of signs - has a long and intriguing history that extends back well beyond the last century, two and a half millennia to Hippocrates of Cos. It ranges through the teachings of Augustine, Scholastic philosophy, the work of Peirce and Saussure. Yet a fully-fledged doctrine of signs, with many horizons for the future, was the result of Sebeok's work in the twentieth century. The massive influence of this work, as well as Sebeok's convening of semiotic projects and encouragement of a huge number of researchers globally, which, in turn, set in train countless research projects, is difficult to document and has not been assessed until now. This volume, using the testimonies of key witnesses and participants in the semiotic project, offers a picture of how Sebeok, through his development of knowledge of endosemiotics, phytosemiotics, biosemiotics and sociosemiotics, enabled semiotics in general to redraw the boundaries of science and the humanities as well as nature and culture.

Bloomsbury Semiotics offers a state-of-the-art overview of the entire field of semiotics by revealing its influence on a wide range of disciplinary perspectives. With four volumes spanning theory, method and practice across the disciplines, this definitive reference work emphasizes and strengthens common bonds shared across intellectual cultures, and facilitates the discovery and recovery of meaning across fields. It comprises: Volume 1: History and Semiosis Volume 2: Semiotics in the Natural and Technical Sciences Volume 3: Semiotics in the Arts and Social Sciences Volume 4: Semiotic Movements Written by leading international experts, the chapters provide comprehensive overviews of the history and status of semiotic inquiry across a diverse range of traditions and disciplines. Together, they highlight key contemporary developments and debates along with ongoing research priorities. Providing the most comprehensive and united overview of the field, Bloomsbury Semiotics enables anyone, from students to seasoned practitioners, to better understand and benefit from semiotic insight and how it relates to their own area of study or research. Volume 3: Semiotics in the Arts and Social Sciences presents the state-of-the art in semiotic approaches to disciplines ranging from philosophy and anthropology to history and archaeology, from sociology and religious studies to music, dance, rhetoric, literature, and structural linguistics. Each chapter goes casts a vision for future research priorities, unanswered questions, and fresh openings for semiotic participation in these and related fields.

This volume provides a critical roadmap through the major historical sources of legal semiotics as we know them today. The history of legal semiotics, now at least a century old, has never been written (a non-event itself pregnant with semiotic possibility). As a consequence, its sources are seldom clearly exposed and, as word, object and meaning change, are sometimes lost. They reach from an English translation of the 1916 inaugural lecture of the first Chair in Legal Significs at the Amsterdam University, via mid 20th century studies on “property” or “contract,” to equally fascinating essays on contemporary semiotic problems produced by former students of the Roberta Kevelson Semiotics Roundtable Seminar at Penn State University 2012 and 2013. Together, the materials in this book weave the fabric of semiotics and significs, two names for the unfolding of semiotics in law and legal discourse at least until the second half of the 20th century, and both of which covered a lawyer’s focus on sign and meaning in law. The latter is embedded within the cultural imperatives of the civilization that gave these terms meaning and made them an effective tool for the dissection of law, its reconstitution as an instrument to be used by the lawyer to advance the interests of her clients, and for judges as a means to restructure language as a narrative of law whose power could bend behavior to its strictures. Legal semiotics has become an indispensible part of the elite lawyer’s toolkit and a fundamental approach to analysis of legal texts. Two previous volumes published in 2011 and 2012 explored the conceptual, methodological and epistemological progress in the field of legal semiotics, the modern forms of semiotics study, and the mechanics of meaning making processes by lawyers. Yet the great lessons of semiotics requires a focus on the origins of the concepts and frameworks that would become contemporary legal semiotics, its origins as an object of the consciousness of meaning making—one whose roots, as lessons for the oracular conversations of law, are expanded in this volume.

United States historian William Pencak presents thirteen of his essays, written beginning in 1976. Some deal with colonial and revolutionary crowds and communities in Massachusetts - the impressment riot of 1747, the popular uprisings of the 1760s and 1770s, and Shays' Rebellion. Others examine popular ideology in songs and almanacs, and the thought and behavior of George Washington, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and the loyalist Peter Oliver. Interpretive essays argue that colonial outage that their participation in the French and Indian War went unrecognized by the British led to the American Revolution; that revolutionary economic thought turned smuggling from a vice into the 'natural law' of free trade; and that focusing on the 'Civil War,' and the years 1861 to 1865, leads to a glorified conception of the national past that is better understood as shaped by 'An Era of Racial Violence' that extended from 1854 to at least 1877.

Violations of international law and human rights laws are the plague of the 20th and 21st centuries. People's inhumanity to people escalates as wars proliferate and respect for human rights and the laws of war diminish. Decoding International Law analyses international law as represented artfully in the humanities.