Conversations With Lotman

by Andrews, Edna; LOTMAN, IU. M.

• ISBN13: 9780802036865
• ISBN10: 0802036864
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-10-01
• Publisher: Univ of Toronto Pr

Summary

Conversations with Lotmanis a critical analysis of Russian cultural historian and theoretician Jurij Lotman's central contributions to the study of semiotics, including his writings on the "semiotics of culture" and the "semiotics of artistic space," and his efforts to model the production of cultural knowledge and how it is shared in any functioning semiotic space. Edna Andrews builds a narrative around Lotman's work by presenting the major principles of his cultural semiotic theory, including his doctrine of signs, his definition of the "semiosphere," and his modelling of communication as a means to create new knowledge and to share old knowledge.Andrews also examines how Lotman's semiotic constructs relate to structuralist and post-structuralist semiotic theories, the work of other theorists of semiotics such as Charles S. Pierce and Thomas A. Sebeok, to twentieth-century Russian literary texts, and to the cognitive sciences. Andrews grapples with Lotman's difficult, sometimes contradictory, theories of human language, perception, and memory, offering semioticians the opportunity to read the first sustained study of Lotman's work in English.

Author Biography

EDNA ANDREWS is a Professor of Slavic Linguistics and Cultural Anthropology at Duke University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xi
Introduction	xiii
PART ONE: LOTMAN'S CULTURAL SEMIOTIC THEORY
1 Lotman's Contributions to the Semiotics of Culture	3	(10)
Lotman's Cultural and Intellectual Environment	5	(5)
The Early Years	5	(2)
The Tartu-Moscow Collaboration	7	(2)
Lotman's Mature Years	9	(1)
Fundamental Principles of the Tartu-Moscow School	10	(3)
2 The Structure of Cultural Semiotic Systems	13	(13)
Language or Languages? Minimum Requirements for Dynamic Cultural Space	17	(1)
Language versus Code	17	(1)
Communication Acts	17	(1)
The Creation of Cultural Texts	18	(3)
Lotman's Communication Model	18	(1)
Jakobson's Communication Model	18	(2)
Sebeok's Communication Model	20	(1)
Binary or Triadic Signs	21	(5)
3 Introduction to the Semiosphere	26	(16)
Entropy and Communication	26	(2)
Autocommunication	28	(3)
Semiotic Space	31	(4)
Continuity and Discontinuity	35	(5)
Collective Memory	40	(2)
4 Characteristics and Origins of the Semiosphere	42	(31)
Characteristics of the Semiosphere	42	(13)
Boundaries	46	(2)
Tension and Explosion	48	(5)
The Illusion of Continuity	53	(2)
Origins of the Semiosphere	55	(3)
Energy and Entropy in Semiotic Space	58	(2)
Uexküll's Semiotic Model	60	(5)
The Functioning Semiosphere	65	(8)
Proper Names	65	(1)
Metatexts	66	(2)
Memory	68	(5)
PART TWO: THE CONSTRUCTION OF SEMIOTIC SPACE IN VERBAL TEXTS
5 Lotman, Bulgakov, and Zamyatin	73	(20)
Lotman on Bulgakov's Master and Margarita	74	(3)
The Oppositions of Home	74	(3)
The Artistic Text	77	(3)
Artistic Spaces and Textual Dynamics	80	(13)
Space and the Road	81	(1)
Types of Infinity	82	(2)
Florensky and Imaginary Space	84	(2)
Bulgakov's Journey in Time and Space	86	(7)
6 Bulgakov and Zamyatin	93	(19)
Intertextuality and Revolution	93	(1)
Zamyatin and Bulgakov	94	(3)
Textual Links between Master and 'Drakon'	97	(10)
Atemporal Reflections	107	(1)
Construction and Intention in the Artistic Text	108	(4)
7 Extending Lotmanian Theory	112	(21)
Zamyatin and Heresy	113	(1)
The Synthetic Texts in We	114	(9)
Numerical Texts	115	(3)
Mathematical Texts	118	(5)
The Taylor Series	123	(2)
Decoding of Multiple Texts	125	(8)
PART THREE: SEMIOTIC THEORYAS A COGNITIVE SCIENCE
8 Visual and Auditory Signs in Human Language: Perception and Imagery	133	(14)
Visual Categories in Semantic Structures	135	(2)
The Functioning of the Visual Cortex	137	(3)
Language Development and the Absence of Vision	140	(2)
The Relationship between Visual and Auditory Signs	142	(2)
Brain, Language, and Culture: The Construction of Meaning	144	(3)
9 The Language of Memory in the Memory of Language	147	(14)
Encoding and Decoding: Learning and Retrieval	148	(5)
Semantic Memory and Priming	153	(1)
Source Memory	154	(1)
Collective Memory	155	(2)
Interpretants and Memory	157	(4)
Notes	161	(18)
References	179	(14)
Index	193