Wednesday, November 30, 2016

The Autumn 2016 Semiosalong Series Semiotic Seismology: Anticipating Instability.

Session 3: Merit Rickberg. Ethnocentric History: A Mechanism of (dis)Integration?
and: Mark Lemon. Deconstructing Commercials for a Better Tomorrow

Tuesday December 6th 2016, Jakobi 2-336 at 18.00 

The naive always expect revolution within their lifetime. It is typical to exteriorize personal mortality: of course something big will happen soon! On the other hand we know, species go extinct, civilizations disappear, continents are swallowed by the sea, just like our bodies end up in the ground. We instinctively go about life as if this were not the case, unless we have reason to suspect imminent cataclysm. What are the possible metrics of such prediction? How does one think outside a rationality prescribed exactly by the endangered system? How can semiotics think ahead of the learning curve to minimize fallout from personal and global network disintegrations?


Friday, November 18, 2016

Semiotic Seismology 2: Jonathan Griffin and Luke Rahmanova

Session 2: Jonathan Griffin. Eschatology: Doom of the Elect
and: Luke Rahmanova: How to Plan Your Daily Earthquake

Tuesday November 22nd 2016, Jakobi 2-336 at 18.00 

facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/250718322010050/

The naive always expect revolution within their lifetime. It is typical to exteriorize personal mortality: of course something big will happen soon! On the other hand we know, species go extinct, civilizations disappear, continents are swallowed by the sea, just like our bodies end up in the ground. We instinctively go about life as if this were not the case, unless we have reason to suspect imminent cataclysm. What are the possible metrics of such prediction? How does one think outside a rationality prescribed exactly by the endangered system? How can semiotics think ahead of the learning curve to minimize fallout from personal and global network disintegrations?

Thursday, November 3, 2016

Semiotic Seismology 1: Tyler James Bennett and Riin Magnus

The Autumn 2016 Semiosalong series semiotic seismology: anticipating instability.

Session 1: Tyler James Bennett: Industrial Schematic Prognostics
and: Riin Magnus: Losing the Sense of Suffering

Tuesday November 8th 2016, Jakobi 2-336 at 18.00 

The naive always expect revolution within their lifetime. It is typical to exteriorize personal mortality: of course something big will happen soon! On the other hand we know, species go extinct, civilizations disappear, continents are swallowed by the sea, just like our bodies end up in the ground. We instinctively go about life as if this were not the case, unless we have reason to suspect imminent cataclysm. What are the possible metrics of such prediction? How does one think outside a rationality prescribed exactly by the endangered system? How can semiotics think ahead of the learning curve to minimize fallout from personal and global network disintegrations?

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Semiotics of Crime 4 with Mehmet Emir Uslu: Inference and Criminology in the Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Don't miss the final Semiosalong of the year: Semiotics of Crime 4 with Mehmet Emir Uslu: Inference and Criminology in the Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Arguably the progenitor of the genre of detective fiction, Arthur Conan Doyle`s Sherlock Holmes is a fertile field that lends itself to semiotic analysis through detection and interpretation of seemingly disparate details and clues. Through the past century, Doyle`s Holmes depicted the essence of a detective / semiotician - insightful, imaginative and perceptive towards his surroundings. Methods of inference employed by Holmes constitute a basic methodology of criminal investigation. Conan Doyle`s works are also remarkable indicators of social structure of 19th century United Kingdom, as well as being precursor to later crime writers, from Agatha Christie to Colin Dexter and Rex Stout.


Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Semiotics of Crime 3 with Katre Pärn. Filling the Void: Signs of Crime

Don't miss Semiotics of Crime 3 with Katre Pärn. Filling the Void: Signs of Crime, at Arhiiv in Tartu, this Thursday 12.05.2016, starting at 18.00. Read the description below.


The semiotic perspective can enter into criminological discussions on various levels, for example on the socio-cutural level as a study of sociocultural mechanisms surrounding and “producing” crime and deviance; on the institutional level of law and justice systems as a study of cultural subsystems defining, formalizing and enforcing the spheres of the criminal and the legal; or on the level of forensics as a study of signs of crime. It will also allow us to see the interrelationships between those layers, the ways in which the signs of crime are constituted, produced outside and beyond the scene of the crime.
The presentation will explore some of the semiotic facets of construction, reconstruction and deconstruction of crime – of semiotics of crime, semiotic crimes and semiotics of (de)criminalization – from the perspective of the workings of sign and media.

Friday, March 18, 2016

Thursday, March 17, 2016

Here is the first of four videos from last semester's Semiotics of Death series: Francesco Orsi: Sex, Death and Perversion