Susan A Petrilli - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Sebeok as a Semiotician by Susan A Petrilli

There should be a discussion on the major topic and results of Sebeok's semiotic activity. He sta... more There should be a discussion on the major topic and results of Sebeok's semiotic activity. He started as a Finno-Ugrist linguist, and then moved to general linguistics and communication theory and non-verbal communication. Then he became an outliner and historiographer of semiotics, the founding father of "zoosemiotics", and of a classical style "biosemiotics". He did more than anybody else for international congresses, teaching and publication of worldwide semiotics. He was a central knot of the "semiotic web". There are still many persons who have known and remember him.

Papers by Susan A Petrilli

Storytelling and the great narration of global communication The aim of this paper is to consider... more Storytelling and the great narration of global communication The aim of this paper is to consider the practice of storytelling present throughout all world cultures whether orally, in writing or through the various nonverbal sign systems at our disposal, and contrast this practice with the great narration of global communication as it characterizes the world today. Telling stories is a practice with traces throughout the whole world interconnecting different peoples in a way that is altogether different from the kind of interconnection achieved through recent forms of global communication. And as emerges from the patrimony of legends, fables, myths, and stories common to humanity, storytelling has acted as a sort of connective tissue throughout the centuries allowing for the circulation of common themes, subjects, values and discourse genres through time as well. However, as much as storytelling is a common practice shared by different peoples it also differentiates them, favouring encounter and mutual understanding. On the contrary, given its subservience to the global market and condition of general commodification, global communication leads to homologation and levelling of the differences unless they are related to competition, conflict and mutual exclusion. Narrativity today unfolds through different discourse genres, including the novel, and through different media which are not only writing and orality, but cinema for example. The common aspect of storytelling is that it is always an end in itself and is founded uniquely in the pleasure of involving and listening to the other. This aspect distinguishes what we intend by storytelling from the type of narrativity that serves power: the power of control and punishment (the story told to the judge or police commissariat), the power of information (journalistic chronicles), the power of healing (the case history, the story that interests the psychoanalyst), the power of redeeming and saving (the story told at confession), the power of registering and of establishing the Sense of History (reconstruction of the facts by the historian, etc.). Global communication is functional to the order of discourse; on the contrary, story-telling suspends the order of discourse offering a space for reflection, critical rethinking, dialogue, encounter, hospitality.

... ci, nella forma di non linguaggio, e soltanto per quella parte abbastanza ridotta che è il mo... more ... ci, nella forma di non linguaggio, e soltanto per quella parte abbastanza ridotta che è il mondo umano, per ... spazia ben al di là dei limiti assegnati alla scienza o teoria - o dottrina come preferisce Sebeok - dei segni da quelle concezioni che impie-gano la nozione di ...

De Gruyter eBooks, Jul 15, 2011

... SEMIOTICS UNBOUNDED: INTERPRETIVE ROUTES THROUGH THE OPEN NETWORK OF SIGNS ... Semiotics Unbo... more ... SEMIOTICS UNBOUNDED: INTERPRETIVE ROUTES THROUGH THE OPEN NETWORK OF SIGNS ... Semiotics Unbounded Interpretive Routes through the Open Network of Signs Susan Petrilli and Augusto Ponzio UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London ...

Routledge eBooks, Jun 23, 2022

BRILL eBooks, 1990

... Words like" freedom"," democracy", " justice"," equality&q... more ... Words like" freedom"," democracy", " justice"," equality"," property", receive an appropriate meaning only when ... marxism has ignored these problems, and as a consequence proceeds itself to insisting ... conception of the infinitesmal entity, considered to be a quantity equal to and ...

IGI Global eBooks, Apr 1, 2022

Semiotics Unbounded, 2005

De Gruyter eBooks, Jul 15, 2011

Routledge eBooks, Jun 23, 2022

BRILL eBooks, 1990

IGI Global eBooks, Apr 1, 2022

Semiotics Unbounded, 2005

Cygne noir, 2023

Dans cet entretien, réalisé en anglais puis traduit en français et édité par Simon Levesque, Susa... more Dans cet entretien, réalisé en anglais puis traduit en français et édité par Simon Levesque, Susan Petrilli discute de sa carrière universitaire, des jalons qui ont marqué celle-ci et des projets qui continuent de l’animer. Petrilli aborde notamment ses collaborations intellectuelles avec Thomas Sebeok et Augusto Ponzio, ses recherches et travaux pour revitaliser la pensée de Victoria Welby, ainsi que l’influence profonde sur sa pensée des écrits de Charles Sanders Peirce, Mikhaïl Bakhtine, Ferruccio Rossi-Landi et Emmanuel Levinas. Un des objectifs de ce dialogue est d’interroger la place et l’importance de la critique dans la sémioéthique. En l’inscrivant dans un paradigme critique, Petrilli défend la pertinence et l’actualité de cette approche qu’elle a développée pour penser divers problèmes qui affectent notre monde contemporain. Le dialogue est organisé autour des thèmes du vivre-ensemble, de l’altérité, de la précarité, des changements climatiques, de la responsabilité, de l’écoute et du soin.

Bloomsbury Semiotics, Vol. 3, 2023

This is the third of four volumes constituting The Bloomsbury Companion to Semiotics, a state-of-... more This is the third of four volumes constituting The Bloomsbury Companion to Semiotics, a state-of-the-art survey of semiotic inquiry, proposing developments and research priorities, as though responding to Sebeok (1991: 97-9) when à propos semiosis and semiotics he asks, 'what lies in their future?'. The nature of the project is implementation of the 'detotalizing method', thus denominated by Rossi-Landi (1985). Uniting different disciplines, universes of discourse, a multiplicity of voices in an open dialogical totality, the detotalizing method presupposes alterity of signs, language and communication beyond the separatism of specialisms and universalisms, and as such is a dialectical-dialogical method. A global survey, diachronic and synchronic, historical and transdisciplinary, this project also recalls Morris and his appeal for 'unity of semiotic' ([1938] 1971: 55-64); a detotalized unity corresponding to the detotalized and dialogic nature of its object of study in its manifold manifestations-signs and sign systems, semiosis. The aim is not to juxtapose multiple special semiotics syncretically, nor to propose a totalizing transversal language of unified science, nor for semiotics to prevail over different disciplines in the name of philosophical omniscience. Instead, a general and global semiotic vision can perform a detotalizing, critical function towards all claimed totalities, thereby fostering dialogue among specialized disciplines. In this sense semiotics is unique, not merely 'a science among sciences, but an organon or instrument of all the sciences' ([1938] 1971: 67-8). Based on listening to the other, the detotalizing method favours deconstruction of the larger totality, evidencing interrelationship among its constitutive totalities, alias alterities. Otherness and dialogism are intrinsic to the sign, condition of interconnectiveness and interdependency among signs, sign systems and dimensions of semiosis in which human experience is articulated, its sense, meaning and significance. Regarding the arts and social sciences, attention is on verbal and nonverbal semiosis, before and beyond the word. Contrary to reductionist oversimplification, meaning cannot be encapsulated in definitions, pseudo-scientific jargon and improbable typologies. Technical terminology of special languages aside, signifying ambiguity is irrepressible. Alterity, dialogicality and listening are structural to the life of signs and enable semiotic research beyond prescribed boundaries of academic disciplines with their commonplaces and stereotypes, beyond institutionalized listening. Such propensity characterizes literary speech genres, and indeed artistic discourse generally.