Semiotic Rotations

Modes of Meanings in Cultural Worlds

Edited by:
SunHee Kim Gertz, Clark University
Jaan Valsiner, Niels Bohr Professor of Cultural Psychology, Aalborg University
Jean-Paul Breaux, Clark University

A volume in the series: Advances in Cultural Psychology: Constructing Human Development. Editor(s): Jaan Valsiner, Niels Bohr Professor of Cultural Psychology, Aalborg University.

Published 2007

The title of our volume on interdisciplinary semiotics is situated in a geographical metaphor and points to the possibility of uncovering meanings through shifting perspectives as well as to the possibility of understanding how these various modes of meaning are articulated and framed in particular cultural instances. Regardless of medium, semiotic rotations permit play between the surface and underlying levels of a communication, reveal the relationship between open and closed systems of signification, and modulate shades of meaning caught between the visible and invisible. Readerly play in these sets of apparent oppositions reveals that the less each pairing is held to be a coupling of oppositions and the more they are observed through perspectives gained by semiotic rotations, then the more complex and rich the modes of meaning may become.

CONTENTS
CONTENTS: Introduction. PART I: Imaging Self and Otherness. The Spatial Representation of Cultural Otherness, Winfried Noth. Mothers, Fathers, and Parents, Nandita Chaudhary. Monstrosities/Deformations—Structuralist Metamorphoses in Film Analysis, Bettina Papenburg. PART II: Boundaries and Frames. When the Cat's Away, the Mice Will Play, Jorgen Dines Johansen. Hooded Performance = Un/Masking of Hoodlum Politics? Klaus-Peter Koepping. Posthuman Culture, Lucia Santaella. PART III: Beyond Linearity. Dimensions of an Aesthetic Encounter, Robert E. Innis. From September 11 to the Iraqi War, Annamaria Silvana de Rosa. Transforming Genres in Marie de France's Eliduc, SunHee Kim Gertz. Conclusions, Jaan Valsiner and SunHee Kim Gertz. About the Contributors. Index.