Paul Cobley

Litza Jansz

Outlines the development of sign study from its classical precursors to contemporary post-structuralism.

Introducing Semiotics

Matthew Royal

This is a great intro to semiotics -- it's a comic book, but don't think it's trivial. Great launch point for students or the casually interested.

Rjyan C Kidwell

I wonder how many people on this site feel that books must be given a number of stars that reflect the writing itself (was it well-written or poorly written) and how many feel that you can give stars based on how inspiring or entertaining the book and its subject matter is as a whole? fwiw, I'm in the latter group. No offense to the author, who may have done a great job encapsulating the field of semiotics (or the illustrator who is carrying just as much weight here) but I don't feel more about this book other than the 2 stars "It's OK" because the subject matter is depressing. Semiotics seems like a bunch of nerds in a morass of academics trying to feel like they have more control over the world because they've "decoded" the way meaning works, despite the fact that they don't actually end up exerting more control over anything at all going on in the world, they're just talking to each other, watching existence unfold exactly as it did before they had their understanding. The whole time I'm reading this I'm going, "To what end? To what end do you chase meaning in ~this~ way? What do you get at the end of the chase that's so superior to the understanding of and relationship to meaning achieved in the healing path of the deeper psychologies, or a serious study of any mystical tradition?" In the very last few pages, the author answers the question with examples of a dude who sees the whole convoluted field making some contributions-- eventually making some contributions, after more work is done-- to child-rearing, which seems anticlimactic as hell for such grandiose, institutionalized theorizing; the other example is a company that uses semiotics to help ad agencies make more effective propaganda for their products. Please, gag me. Weaponized semiotics for increased profits? Awesome. Great job, you boring beardos. The few pages on Umberto Eco are the only bright spot, but not explicitly used as an example of where all this obsessive nitpickery can go, because I guess the semioticians are materialist enough to find Increased Creativity unworthy of justifying the continuation of their pursuit.

Introducing Semiotics

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