Paul Bouissac

سوسور

Dragoş Gheorghiu

Recent years have witnessed a search for new sources for archaeological inspiration within areas which until recently have not been imagined as a source for science. Archaeology has become more “anthropologized”, and, as such, is becoming increasingly influenced by the Zeitgeist, although some European schools are yet to recognize this. The process of scientific research that archaeologists have always considered to be an objective approach has been revealed to be the result of different subjective cognitive processes, forming part of the contemporary humanistic paradigm, a fact confirmed by new tendencies in contemporary archaeology. Consequently, this book considers the question: how does the archaeologist think today? Beginning with simple analogies issued from archaeological experiments or from ethnography, the structure of the contemporary archaeological thought is increasingly complex, working today with concepts that only yesterday were a subject of study. This book considers these new types of approaches, through a series of personal narratives provided by archaeologists, describing their working methods in the process of imagining the past.

How Do We Imagine the Past? On Metaphorical Thought, Experientiality and Imagination in Archaeology

Arie Sover

Why are things funny? How has humor changed over the centuries? Why don't political leaders like to be presented in caricatures? What do jokes tell us about ourselves? Why does slipping on a banana peel make so many people laugh? Featuring expert authors from across the globe, The Languages of Humor discusses various types of humor: verbal, visual and physical. The Languages of Humor explores many types of humor, and does so across a wide range of intellectual disciplines including sociology, psychology, communication, philosophy, history, social sciences, linguistics, computer science, literature, theatre, education and culture studies. Some of the contributors to this volume, as well as being academics, also have a professional background in humor which makes the book unique. This is research-led book offers a top-down analysis of humor studies

Verbal, Visual, and Physical Humor

The Languages of Humor

Umberto Eco

Thomas A. Sebeok

Jerzy Pelc

Alain Rey

Roland Possner

Ann Shukmann

Bibliography

This book documents and discusses the meaning(s) of the creative process at play in the crafting and staging of circus acts. It highlights the experience of circus artists as their skills develop and mature into public performances that create aesthetic and emotional values in the modern economy of live spectacles. It scrutinizes the meaning that circus acts produce for the spectators and for the artists themselves who live this process from the inside. This is a book for those studying semiotics and wanting to see it applied to a real life milieu in accessible and passionate prose. The Meaning of the Circus is grounded on the personal experience of Professor Paul Bouissac as both a circus entrepreneur and a researcher with decades of primary material on the significance of past and contemporary circus acts. It is based on substantial accounts provided by many men and women who have agreed to share the challenges, joys, and anxieties of their life as artists. Personal and rigorous, it contributes to the hermeneutics of the circus arts by adding existential depth to the production and reception of their performances.

The Communicative Experience of Cult, Art, and Awe

The Meaning of the Circus

This book analyses two features of the traditional circus that have come under increasing attack since the mid-20th century: the use of wild animals in performance and the act of clowning. Positioning this socio-cultural change within the broader perspective of evolutionary semiotics, renowned circus expert Paul Bouissac examines the decline of the traditional circus and its transformation into a purely acrobatic spectacle. The End of the Circus draws on Bouissac's extensive ethnographic research, including previously unpublished material on the training of wild animals and clown make-up, to chart the origins of the circus in Gypsy culture and the drastic change in contemporary Western attitudes on ethical grounds. It scrutinizes the emergence of the new form of circus, with its focus on acrobatics and the meaning of the body, showing how acrobatic techniques have been appropriated from traditional Gypsy heritage and brought into the fold of mainstream popular entertainment. Questioning the survival of the new circus and the likely resurgence of its traditional forms, this book showcases Bouissac's innovative approach to semiotics and marks the culmination of his ground-breaking work on the circus.

Evolutionary Semiotics and Cultural Resilience

The End of the Circus

What do circus performances communicate? They are rich in extreme skills and clever staging. They trigger strong emotions. They make beautiful sense. This book, which is grounded in the personal circus experience of the author, uses semiotics, pragmatics, and cultural studies to explain why we are irresistibly drawn to the circus. It shows how semiotics can be applied to understand and enhance our enjoyment. This series focuses on the state of contemporary semiotics and its current applications Each volume in the series places its topic within a general understanding of today's semiotics, an interdisciplinary field which investigates the application of sign theory not only to culture, but also to nature. The books are accessibly written and communicate with an academic readership that is not overspecialized.

Semiotics at the Circus

Introduces the reader to the ways in which Saussure developed his revolutionary insights on language in the context of the linguistics of his time.

Saussure: A Guide For The Perplexed

Personal pronouns have a special status in languages. As indexical tools they are the means by which languages and persons intimately interface with each other within a particular social structure. Pronouns involve more than mere grammatical functions in live communication acts. They variously signal the gender of speakers as parts of utterances or in their anaphoric roles. They also prominently indicate with a range of degrees the kind of social relationships that hold between speakers from intimacy to indifference, from dominance to submission, and from solidarity to hostility. Languages greatly vary in the number of pronouns and other address terms they offer to their users with a distinct range of social values. Children learn their relative position in their family and in their society through the “correct” use of pronouns. When languages come into contact because of population migrations or through the process of translation, pronouns are the most sensitive zone of tension both psychologically and politically. This volume endeavours to probe the comparative pragmatics of pronominal systems as social processes in a representative set from different language families and cultural areas.

A comparative approach

The Social Dynamics of Pronominal Systems

During the last 300 years circus clowns have emerged as powerful cultural icons. This is the first semiotic analysis of the range of make-up and costumes through which the clowns' performing identities have been established and go on developing. It also examines what Bouissac terms 'micronarratives' - narrative meanings that clowns generate through their acts, dialogues and gestures. Putting a repertory of clown performances under the semiotic microscope leads to the conclusion that the performances are all interconnected and come from what might be termed a 'mythical matrix'. These micronarratives replicate in context-sensitive forms a master narrative whose general theme refers to the emergence of cultures and constraints that they place upon instinctual behaviour. From this vantage point, each performance can be considered as a ritual which re-enacts the primitive violence inherent in all cultures and the temporary resolutions which must be negotiated as the outcome. Why do these acts of transgression and re-integration then trigger laughter and wonder? What kind of mirror does this put up to society? In a masterful semiotic analysis, Bouissac delves into decades of research to answer these questions.

Paul Bouissac

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