ISSN 2414-6862
Proceedings of the world congress of the IASS/AIS
Introduction
The 12th World Congress of the International Association for Semiotic Studies “New Semiotics. Between Tradition and Innovation” took place in Sofia, Bulgaria, between 16 and 20 September 2014. It was the result of one year of intensive preparatory work, 5 days of semiotic performances by more than 500 semioticians from 61 countries, plus 1.5 years of “postproduction”. Semio2014 was a big congress: if we compare the programs and the abstract books with the 10th IASS Congress in A Coruna, Spain, there is still the same number of papers. It is a good tendency, considering the aggressive EU policies of cutting university budgets, privatization and labour market efficacy, where the humanities in particular have suffered. Indeed, this tendency had its negative impact on the 12th Congress in respect of a reduced presence of scholars from EU countries. Yet, fortunately, it was balanced by a positive tendency, as we witnessed more and more semioticians, coming from the “non-Western” world, with a particular boom of Brazilian scholars – more than 50 of them participating in Sofia. Certainly there were more participants also from China and the other countries from the Far East, compared to the previous congresses in Europe.
The impact of these trends on semiotic production is important and shapes the new face of semiotics. Just a quick view of the contents of the Proceedings is enough to note that semiotic inquiry combines tradition and innovation in an exemplary way. More traditional are the contributions in the theoretical area of semiotics, where 54 papers have been placed, covering classical topics such as Peirce, Saussure, text, sign, culture, nature, narrative, time, art, law, gender, etc. The new face of semiotics is revealed with the applied semiotics section (57 papers) and the section devoted to semiotics in interdisciplinary context (30 papers). There one can enjoy semiotic explorations of topics ranging from Elves to selfies, from Jean-Paul Gaultier to battered women, from digital nomads to African folk dances, from the Harry Potter saga to schizophrenia, from heavy metal CD covers to the pet world, from manga and anime to narco-traffic, and the list continues. The innovation that is so characteristic of semiotics is reflected also in the large number of papers directly or indirectly dedicated to the internet and digital culture. In all these new openings for semiotic interest is obvious a reduction of the methodological rigor, typical for the first decades of publications of the proceedings. Another trend, also based on comparison with Proceeding from previous Congresses, is evinced in the higher number of papers in English in respect to the other three official languages of the IASS/AIS. Less than 20% of the papers in the current Proceedings are in French and Spanish and only one paper is in German.
The introduction to the general character of the contents of these Proceedings can stop here. Nothing more is necessary in presenting a rationale for this collection. But as generative semiotics teaches us, the most interesting things usually remain beneath the textual surface; they inhere in the process which creates the textual result.
The interesting procedural questions are as follows: “Why are the proceedings in online form?”, “Why does it take so long after the Congress to publish them?”, “How many of the participants in the Congress submitted their papers to the Proceedings?”, “Where are the plenary papers?”, “How was the evaluation process organized?”.
Many of the answers of these questions derive from the strategic choice of the organizers of the Congress to exploit the advantages of digital communication. Thus, Semio2014 became the first fully “digital” IASS congress (cf. Cobley and Bankov 2016, note 2 below). That decision facilitated a kind of “crowd sourcing” from the early preparatory phase when only the general division of theoretical, applied, interdisciplinary and regional semiotics was offered. There was not a formal centralized scientific committee; the proposals for round tables were sanctioned by a debate through social media, generating a number of proposed papers. In this phase it became clear that the chairs of the proposed sessions were responsible, together with the organizing committee, for the quality and the pertinence of the papers, included in them. This networked approach helped us to create a program which was more representative of the state of the art in world semiotics, in contrast to a centralized approach in which, geographically and managerially, one overview of semiotics would be maintained. The same philosophy of “crowd sourcing” is transferred to the Proceedings project. Our internal editorial board carried out much work on the received papers; but the final decision on quality and inclusion was the responsibility of the roundtable chairpersons. Thus the editorial board of the present book includes virtually all 37 chairpersons of the represented roundtables!
And where are the plenary speakers? Actually the traditional plenary role, in which a conference is ‘led’ by ‘famous’ scholars, was not replayed in Semio2014. The Congress featured two Honorary Guest Speakers - Jaakko Hintikka and Solomon Marcus – who, since the Congress, have sadly passed away. We mark their passing and pay tribute to these revered scholars by opening these Proceedings with their papers. The major innovation in the Congress, however, was that we substituted the plenary speech format with the series of lectures under the banner, “Semiotics and Its Masters”. We did that not only for budgetary reasons, but also to avoid the limitation of having only 8-10 plenary speakers at most. About 40 distinguished semioticians from all possible continents (except Antarctica) were contacted and given the chance to present a speech under the aforementioned banner. Ultimately, 29 lectures from the series were included in the program. From the very beginning, those papers were planned to be published as a separate volume in order to maintain two records of the Congress: one record concerned with the breadth and innovation of semiotics represented in the Congress and one with slightly longer, thematic contributions which would be attractive to a commercial publisher and would provide a more digestible account of the ‘state of the art’ in semiotics at the time of Semio2014. The latter project is in an advanced phase, within the Semiotics, Communication and Cognition [SCC] series of de Gruyter Mouton, and will be published later in 2016.
Let us be clear that the academic publishing landscape has started to resemble a minefield and that the Congress organizers and the IASS have been committed to finding publishing options which would best benefit the members in the long term. Already during the preparatory phase of the Congress, the organizers were subject to the “predatory open access publishing” phenomenon, an industry with elaborate tools that seeks to achieve its goals through aggressive approaches to conference organizers. So, after the online appearance of the first drafts of the program of the Congress, I was contacted by a dozen known and unknown publishers who were interested in publishing the proceedings. Some of these proposals were elaborated with concrete references to the Congress topics. What struck me in particular regarding their aggression, was that after the rejection of some of these proposals those same publishers started to contact the round table chairs. Thus I myself was contacted by the same publishers in my capacity of chair of one of the round tables, with reference to the contents of the concrete round table, having already rejected the publisher’s approach in my capacity as Congress organizer. I know that many other chairs received such proposals and I know that some of them have accepted them. Thus, we have “lost” certain number of papers from the general corpus of the Proceedings and there has been an undesirable division of our collective endeavour. Furthermore, most of the publishers involved in these activities are attracted to scholarly societies because they believe that they can demand excessive payments for publication.
I mention this issue in relation to the Proceedings because it bears closely on the plans of future IASS Congresses and the best representation of the membership. The IASS is committed to developing a unified publishing policy in respect of the Proceedings, its agreements with commercial publishing, its flagship journal, plus the growth of regional, local and specialized journals in semiotics. In respect of the latter, recent research by our colleagues from Tartu[1] reports that there are at least 53 regular periodical semiotic journals, and many others that are not regular enough to enter the list but which are active anyway. Some of these published round table papers from Semio2014, rendering the current Proceedings a little less than the fullest possible account of the Congress..
For the future, the IASS, in agreement with the next World Congress, organizer, Dario Martinelli, have taken the decision to start to publish the proceedings of each World Congress in a sustainable and independent way as a periodical edition. We choose to do it under the label of “IASS Publications”, with the collaboration of the publishing house of the host of future Congresses. In this way, if the IASS and the Congress organiser maintain the regularity of the publication, it will be possible to consolidate and obtain all necessary contemporary formal recognitions for the quality of the research of our international semiotics community such entering the SSCI listing, impact factor rating, etc. Thus, the IASS World Congress proceedings will be competitive within the semiotic community and, most of all, the IASS proceedings will not depend on “the mercy of predatory publishers”.[2]
In one way, the last couple of years have been pernicious to our semiotic community. Many distinguished figures passed away. The loss of Umberto Eco was particularly difficult because it meant that the last ‘giant’ of semiotics is gone. Umberto Eco was kind enough to give one of the last long interviews in his life on the occasion of the opening of the World Congress in Sofia, where all participants could watch the video. Here, below, I would like to include an extract from this interview where our Spiritus Rector offers some interesting details about the organization of the first World Congress of the IASS/AIS and some observations on semiotics in general.
Last but not least, I would like to thank the team of the Southeast European Center for Semiotic Studies, all of whose members worked hard in order to make possible the publication of the Proceedings. Thousands of pages, hundreds of hours of reading, editing, contacting chairpersons and authors, uploading, etc. The members of the team are: Ivan Kasabov, Mony Almalech, Borislav Gueorguiev, George Tsonev, Reni Iankova, Dimitar Trendafilov, Ivo Iv. Velinov, Yagodina Manova. But most of all I would like to thank Andrey Batchvarov, who passed away while working on the proceedings, and Boyka Batchvarova, whose heroic efforts were decisive and were made in conditions of the terrible family loss.
Kristian Bankov
New Bulgarian University
[1] Kull, Kalevi and Maran, Timo. 2013. “Journals of semiotics in the world”. Sign Systems Studies 41(1), 2013, 140–145
[2] See Cobley and Bankov, “Vistas for organized global semiotics” to appear in Semiotica, Autumn 2016.
An Interview with Umberto Eco (1932-2016)
In occasion of the 12th World Congress of the International Semiotic Association (IASS/AIS)
17 July, 2014
Monte Cerignone, Molise, Italy
Link to the video of the interview
Interview taken by Kristian Bankov
KB: How did the first IASS/AIS congress start, in 1974?
UE: The organisers were just me and my secretary.
The idea originated when the semiotic association in Paris was founded, there was a first, actually a second meeting in Warsaw, but it was soon after the invasion of Czechoslovakia.
There was the meeting in Paris with Jakobson, Benveniste, Greimas… I think I’m only one… no, Kristeva and I are the only ones still alive among the participants of that meeting.
And there the idea that a conference ought to be done came up. Then there was a last meeting in Parma, because the publisher Franco Maria Ricci wanted to invite everyone… the last elections were held. Cesare Segre was elected president and I was elected as secretary – I had no desire to do it at all – but Jakobson insisted and said: “Go to the congress!”
Well this meeting was… the thing in Warsaw was in 1968 and then the meeting… the meeting was in 1971 or 1972, and we started looking for money for the congress. But we were soon disappointed. It was supposed to be an organisation from Genoa. But later, Genoa didn’t do it, and so on…
Finally the Gemelli institute of Milan provided some funding, they gave us the hall, and there was some small private support. But it wasn’t much. We had twenty million at that time to pay everything. Twenty million were nothing. Twenty million lire [ten thousand euros].
Just to pay for a journey from America required at least one million. We had to refund Jakobson, Sebeok, all these people. Finally we got it done. The only thing is, we didn’t expect all those people to come.
KB: Were there many participants?
UE: We expected about 200-300 registrations… 800-900 persons arrived.
And very important people, whom I hadn’t invited.
Lacan for example… We didn’t think about inviting Lacan because he wasn’t exactly a semiotician.
And the day before the opening we had a party in my home, where we met people we believed had died twenty years before: Buyssens, David Efron (the one who studied gestuality).
We had written to them, and they came. And so there were all of them. All! I remember that my secretary was staring at them because she said: “It’s been two years that I’ve been reading their names, just the names. Now I can see them here and discover that they are real, that they really exist.” The event had been well organised, so that after the opening session various separate sessions started. And at some point I found myself sitting on the steps of a stair, having nothing to do because everybody was in the right place. Every session had its own director, I realised that everything was fine.
KB: What is the ‘added-value’ of a world congress?
UE: First, we actually had to figure out in what sense people were interested in semiotics. Paul Watzlawick, from the Palo Alto school, arrived there unannounced. He came there and at that point we realised that also that kind of research could have a semiotic side.
If you look indeed at the congress proceedings there are different sections, and it became clear that semiotics is not a discipline. Something I had always claimed, and still claim now, even more, although many of my colleagues disagree. I think semiotics should have become a university organisation, a faculty, rather than a discipline.
Let’s think, for instance, about medicine. What do dietetics and oncology, phthisiology and gastroenterology have in common?… they are techniques and have one thing in common: the health of human body. Not only that: between different sections, between an oncologist and a dentist, there’s an abyss, but also within the same specialisation there are different schools. I wrote this also in the preface of Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language: there’s a general semiotics which, for me – not for many others – is still a philosophical discipline concerning the foundation of semiosis, of the sign. Well, I’m linked to Peirce… And then there are specific semiotics which can also be very different amongst each other. Although, at the beginning, during the structuralist phase, we thought we could find general categories which could work… Looking for articulations not just in language but also in cinema… We also acted naively… such as precisely when we thought we could find general categories… And this is not the case. Because the more semiotics distributes itself to different sectors, the more it discovers universes with their own rules. To dominate all these specialisations there should be what I call general semiotics. That is exactly the one I practised myself. In the sense that, yes, at the beginning I dealt with cinema, visual arts, but then I let other people do it, specialised people, so that they could specialise in those things. I limited myself, especially in the last works, to general theoretical problems.
Nowadays, in my opinion, there are few people who are studying general theory, and several who practise, for instance, sociosemiotics, etc… which is good, but if we look at the programme of the semiotic congress in Berkeley in 1994, there were even some disciplines which studied such incredible topics as the afterlife. In that, I think, we had gone a bit overboard, but what I still believe is that what analytic philosophers called the ‘linguistic turn’ of our time, has actually been a ‘semiotic turn’. All disciplines, not just humanities – but also genetics… the genetic code, DNA, etc. – significantly oriented themselves towards the semiotic problem. So that a conference took place in Lucca in 1981-82 where we had immunologists themselves willing to meet the semioticians in order to find points in common. A problem indeed occurred there. Where they thought they could see semiosis, I could only just see a stimulus-response.
KB: At that time semiotics was quite fashionable. How did it develop later?
UE: Yes it was, but there were other phenomena afterwards. While in Italy, and in Germany semiotics continued to develop, the French at some point, driven by reciprocal envy, began to say: “I’m not doing semiotics anymore…”, “I’m doing psychoanalysis”, as Kristeva used to say… Todorov has done history of culture and other wonderful stuff. And thus, what took, so to speak, the leadership of semiotics, was the Greimassian school. And that’s it. At least in Paris. Then if you look at a peripheral university, you might come to know that there are people doing semiotics who are not necessarily Greimassian. But those who claim that there is one scientific semiotics are the Greimassians
In the United States there has been, so to speak, a clash with analytic philosophy… which, in itself could well be understood as an interesting form of semiotics. Especially if we look at its critics like Rorty. We have done many conferences together. But in America there are ‘magic words’. ‘Semiotics’ didn’t sell well. Later some universities like Brown started a PhD programme in semiotics, but at that point cultural studies had become fashionable. Remember that someone doing sociosemiotics is doing cultural studies. But they changed the name of the PhD programme and they called semiotics ‘cultural studies’. There are shibboleth working there, passwords, so to speak, marketing words. And, therefore, America is a special case.
KB: Did you know that the country with the largest number of participants is Brazil?!
UE: But South America always kept going. Brazilians in particular were considerably involved. Brazilians were working on Peirce before the whole semiotic issue in Europe started. They were all Noigandres poets: Haroldo De Campos, Augusto De Campos, Décio Pignatari were studying Peirce in the fifties. Obviously they were wrong, because they used to study Max Bense’s books, who never understood Peirce, but alas!
KB: What would ‘the semiotic tradition’ be?
UE: We shouldn’t throw away tradition… there are some among my friends who have begun to say: “Let’s not throw away Saussure”. Let’s not throw away those from whom we started. For a while semiotics seemed to be all structuralist, and it was like structuralism and semiotics were the same thing, and it was not true. At some point structuralism was thrown out of the window, but we were not meant to get rid of everything.
KB: How do you see semiotic innovation?
UE: ‘Innovation’, let’s try to understand. In the hard sciences there’s a huge sense of continuity: “I say something only basing myself on what the previous scientist said, and I expand, prove, disprove, etc.” Analytic philosophy has tried to reproduce this attitude of the hard sciences: “We have a very precise corpus, everyone produces a small article starting from a previous article by someone else...”
Typically in the humanities there’s the myth of ‘novelty at all costs’. The French are the masters in this sense: “I can be noticed only if I say the contrary of what has been said before.” If that’s what we mean by ‘innovation’, then the method is detrimental. To the point that it reverses the meaning of words. So that for example we can have Baudrillard calling ‘seduction’ what for other people is not seduction. An attempt to always be, as Maritain used to say, Les chevalier de l'absolu… That’s why I was talking about innovation and tradition. We don’t have to always pretend to say the contrary. Maybe it’s also a Hegelian vice. We negate what has been previously said, in order to go forward.
KB: And innovation in a positive sense?
UE: Part of my group tried to merge semiotics and cognitive sciences in the 1990s and 2000s, and so at the University of San Marino, founded by us… we’ve done about twenty very interesting conferences. They were attended by all the major scholars of cognitive sciences, and good relationships have developed. I think that while early semiotics was still the victim of a dogma affecting all philosophy – “We can’t talk about mind”, so either we talk about behaviour or about so-and-so… – with cognitive sciences we realised that we need to talk also about mind.
I always insist on recalling something: Adriano Olivetti, who was a great man, employed engineers in his company when necessary, because he needed them. However, if possible, he also employed people who majored in Greek philology, or philosophy. And then he would send them to the factory for six months in order to see what happened. But he knew that someone who had studied humanities had a mind more open to innovation.
KB: What are you working on now?
UE: I’ve always been of the idea, and I’ve always said, that after turning fifty one has to focus only on Elizabethan poets, whom one knows how to study. One should let young people deal with novelties instead.. It’s not that I’ve actually studied Elizabethan poets, but I have partially diverted to historical studies. I don’t know if you’ve seen the large volume on the history of medieval thought.
And now I am collecting all my semiotic writings. The outcome will be around three thousand pages. Now they are all in the hands of someone, who is only putting together a single bibliography, without modifying the texts. Just unifying and editing them. The result will be a two-volume set. Some sort of funeral offering to be placed into the pyramid for the dying pharaoh!
And then, you know, I have had a strange life line, interrupted in the middle as if I had died at fifty years old, but after continuing like this. And what happened in the middle of my life? I started writing novels. Therefore that’s a parallel life.
KB: You took the another way, probably a more rewarding one…
UE: Well, a more amusing one. Now there’s a new novel. It’s already written. It’s a grotesque representation of journalism. […] It’s the story of a newspaper which might seem a bit Berlusconian, even though the story occurs in 1992, before Berlusconi entered politics.
KB: What should we expect and what can we achieve by a congress?
UE: The results of a congress can only emerge later. When we prepared the congress in 1974 we didn’t expect there to be the high level of participation that there actually was. Perhaps it would have taken only a small mistake in communicating it, and only a hundred people would have come, and nobody would have ever talked about semiotics anymore. The result of a congress is not a final dogmatic document. A congress generates proceedings. And there you can find what is available. It all depends on the productivity and novelty of the proceedings.
KB: What would you wish for the participants?
UE: What would I wish for the participants? Preserve paper! Preserve paper! Do not only study online.
Because a big blackout will occur, everything will disappear and only your books will last!
(Transcription from the audio: Roberto Molica; Translation to English: Tatsuma Padoan)
Entrevista a Umberto Eco (1932-2016)
Por Kristian Bankov
17 July, 2014
Monte Cerignone, Molise, Italia
KB: ¿Cómo transcurrió el primer congreso de IASS/AIS en el año 1974?
UE: Lo organicé yo con la ayuda de mi secretaria. La idea surgió cuando se fundó la Asociación de Semiótica en Paris, después tuvo lugar una primera, es decir una segunda reunión en Varsovia, pero eso fue inmediatamente después de la invasión en Checoeslovaquia. En aquella reunión, que se organizó en Paris, participaron Jacobson, Benveniste, Greimas… me parece que soy el único … No, creo que de los asistentes al primer encuentro somos Kristeva y yo los únicos que todavía quedamos vivos. Y fue allá donde surgió la propuesta de organizar un congreso. Más tarde tuvo una última reunión en Parma puesto que el editor Franco Mª Richi quiso invitar a todos … y se realizó la última selección. Chesare Segre fue elegido Presidente y a mí me nombraron secretario – no me gusto para nada – pero Jacobson insistió y dijo: ¡Adelante el congreso!
De modo que, aquella primera reunión fue en 1968 en Varsovia, la segunda se realizó en 1971 ó 72 y nos pusimos a buscar dinero para el Congreso. Y vivimos grandes desilusiones. Esperábamos recibir el dinero de una organización de Génova. Sin embargo, los de Génova no lo hicieron, etc., etc. Al fin el Instituto Gemelli de Milán nos proporcionaron und pequeña cantidad de dinero, nos concedieron una sala y pudimos contar con una donación privada. Pero no era suficiente. Entonces reunimos 20 millones para pagar todo. 20 millones no era nada. 20 millones de liras (10000 euro).
Solamente un billete de avión de América costaba un millón. Tuvimos que pagar el viaje de Jacobson, de Sebeok, de toda esta gente. Y lo logramos. Pero no pensamos en que llegaran todos.
KB: ¿ Realmente hubo tantos participantes?
UE: Nosotros pensábamos que se matricularan 200-300 personas, pero llegaron 800-900. Y llegaron personalidades de renombre que yo no había invitado. Como Lacan, por ejemplo … No se me había ocurrido invitar a Lacan ya que él no es precisamente un semiólogo.
La víspera de la inauguración organicé una rececpión en mi casa a la que acudieron personas que creíamos muertas desde hacía unos veinte años: Buyssens o David Efron, el mismo que … Buyssens, David Efron – él que se había ocupado del estudio de la gesticulación. Les escribimos y ellos llegaron, ¡llegaron todos! Recuerdo que mi secretaria miraba con los ojos desencajados y decía: “desde hace dos años que no hago más que leer nombres y ahora los veo aquí y ¡encuentro que son reales!” Y todo fue bien organizado, después de la apertura empezaron su trabajo las secciones diferentes. Y, de repente, me encontré sentado en el peldaño una escalera y ya no tenía qué hacer porque cada uno ocupaba su propio lugar. Cada sección tenía su presidente y me di cuenta de que todo estaba en orden.
KB: ¿Qué es lo que aporta un congreso internacional?
UE: En primer lugar, nos interesaba qué rumbos toma el
interés de la gente por la semiótica. Había llegado inesperado Paul Watzlawick, él de la escuela de
Palo Alto. Estaba allí y nos dimos cuenta de que las investigaciones que él
realiza también tienen que ver con la semiótica. En efecto, si se miran las
Actas del Congreso, de verdad hay varias secciones y allá se esbozó hasta
cierto grado lo que yo siempre he afirmado y sigo afirmando, mientras muchos de
mis colegas no lo aceptan, y es que la
semiótica no es precisamente una disciplina. Y si se compararía con una
organización universitaria ella fuera un facultado.
Demos el ejemplo de la medicina. ¿Qué es lo común entre la dietología y la
oncología, o entre la fisiología y la gastroenterología? Son disciplinas unidas
por un denominador común: la salud del cuerpo humano. Aún más: entre las
secciones diferentes, entre un oncólogo y un dentista existe un abismo, pero
también en los marcos de una especialidad hay escuelas diferentes. Esto lo he
escrito en el prólogo de Semiótica y
filosofía del lenguaje: existe una semiología común que para mí aún es una
disciplina filosófica sobre el fundamento de la semiosis, del signo, pero para
muchas otras personas no es así. Pues, es verdad que yo estoy relacionado con Peirce … Y luego hay semióticas
especializadas que pueden ser muy diferentes una de otra, aunque al principio,
por ejemplo en la época del entusiasmo por el estructuralismo, se pensaba que
se Que se podían encontrar categorías comunes que funcionaran como tales…
Se buscaban articulaciones no sólo en la
lengua pero también, digamos, en el cine … Admitimos incluso tantas cosas
ingenuas… llevados precisamente por la idea de encontrar categorías comunes… Y
no es así porque cuanto más se divide la semiótica entre los sectores
diferentes tanto más se descubren universos con leyes propias. Todas estas
ramas deberían ser dominadas por lo que yo llamo semiótica común. Que es lo que me ha ocupado a mí. Sí, en un
principio me ocupaba del cine, de las artes visuales, Pero después dejé que de
ello se ocupara la otra gente especializada en estas esferas específicas. Yo me
limité -antes que nada en mis últimos trabajos- a los problemas teóricos generales.
En mi opinión, creo que hoy en día, son pocas las personas que se ocupan de
teoría general y son muchas los que se
ocupan de, no sé… de, digamos, sociosemiótica, etc. …Lo que no está mal, pero
si se observa el programa del congreso de semiótica en Berkeley, en 1994 fueron
incluidas numerosas disciplinas que hasta llegaron a tratar la vida después de
la muerte. Creo que fue una exageración, pero yo sigo considerando que lo que
los filósofos analíticos llaman linguistic
turn, de hecho es semiotic turn. Todas
las disciplinas y no solamente las humanísticas – y pensad en la genética … en
el código genético, en ADN … están muy orientadas hacia el problema de la
semiosis. Entre otras cosas, entre 1981y 1982 tuvimos un congreso en Luca, en
que participaron inmunólogos que deseaban reunirse con los semióticos para
encontrar puntos comunes. Y allá surgió un problema de verdad. Donde ellos
pensaban ver la semiosis, para mí
había nada más stimulus response.
KB: En aquellos tiempos la semiótica estaba muy de moda. ¿Cómo se desarrolló después?
UE: Sí, pero después ocurrieron otras cosas: aquí es mientras en Italia o en Alemania la semiótica continuaba desarrollarse, llegó un momento en que los francéses, cada uno celoso de lo que hacía el otro, manifestaron: “Ya no me ocupo de semiótica… me ocupo de psicoanálisis”, declaró Krasteva; Todorov empezó ocuparse de la historia cultural y de otras cosas realmente estupendas. Y la que tomó la dirección de la semiótica, fue la escuela de Greimas. Y punto final, no se habló más. Por lo menos en Paris. Luego, si uno iba a ver las universidades periféricas, se daba cuenta de que había quienes se ocupaban de la semiótica sin necesariamente pertenecer a la escuela de Greimas. Pero los que pretenden que existe una sola semiótica científica son los seguidores de Greimas.
En cambio, en los Estados Unidos, pues, se dio un choque con la filosofía analítica la cual, fíjense en sumo grado se puede ver como una forma interesante de la semiótica. Sobre todo, si seguimos sus críticos como, por ejemplo,Rorty … ¡Hemos participado juntos en tantos congresos! Pero en América hay palabras mágicas. „Semiótica“ no se encuentra entre ellas pero se venda bien. Algunas universidades como Brown University, crearon doctorados en semiótica, pero entonces se pusieron de moda los cultural studies. Tened presente que quien estudia sociosemiótica, estudia cultural studies, pero cambiaron el nombre del doctorado y le pusieron cultural studies. En los Estados Unidos deslizan hacia las consignas, quiero decir, a las comerciales. Pero los Estados Unidos es un caso aparte.
KB: ¿Sabía usted que el mayor número de participantes viene de Brasil?
UE: Sí, América Latina en general y los brasileños en particular se han ocupado muchísimo de semiótica. Los brasileños estudiaban a Peirce antes de que el interés por la semiótica apareciera en Europa. Todos los poetas del grupo de Noigandre: Аroldo De Campos, Аugusto De Campos, Decio Piñatari durante de los años cincuenta estudiaron Peirce. Por supuesto, Cometían un error porque lo estudiaban en los libros de Max Bense quien nunca entendidó a Peirce, pero no importa…
KB: ¿En qué consiste la tradición semiótica?
UE: Consiste en que no se descarte nada … uno de mis amigos insistía: „Que no echemos a Saussure!“. No arrojamos a los de quienes marchamos. En un momento la semiótica parecía toda estructural, y parecía que el estructuralismo y la semiótica eran la misma cosa, pero no es así. Hubo un tiempo en el que el estructuralismo fue negado, pero no hay que negarlo todo.
KB: ¿Cómo ve Ud. la innovación semiótica?
La innovación… aclaremos de que se trata. Mientras en las ciencias naturales la continuidad tiene gran importancia yo digo sólo lo que ha dicho algún científico anterior a mí y sobre esta base edifico, aduzco pruebas, refuto, etc, la filosofía analítica, por ejemplo, ensayó imitar las ciencias naturales; existe un corpus muy puntual, cada uno escribe un artículo pequeño marchando del artículo de alguien adelantado. En las ciencias humanísticas existe el mito de la novedad a toda costa. Y los franceses son auténticos maestros en este sentido. Repararán en mí sólo si digo lo contrario de lo que ya se ha dicho antes. Si la innovación es esto, entonces ella es un proceso perjudicial. Ellos incluso cambiaban el sentido de las palabras. No sé, Baudrillard que llama seducción (seduction) lo que para otros no es seducción. Lo de ellos no es más que un intento de estar siempre Les chevaliers de l’absolu, como decía Maritain. Pues no, por eso acabo de decir tradición e innovación. No hace falta simular a toda costa que se dice lo contrario. esto puede tratarse incluso de un vicio hegeliano. Se niega lo que fue para seguir adelante.
KB: ¿Y la innovación en el sentido positivo?
En los años noventa y en
dos mil una parte del grupo en que trabajo trató unir la semiótica a las
ciencias cognitivas y en la Universidad de San Marino, fundada por nosotros,
organizaron unas veinte conferencias muy interesadas, a las que asistieron
todos los grandes científicos en la esfera de las ciencias cognitivas y establecimos
contactos muy fructiferos. Creo que en un principio la semiótica fue víctima de
un dogma que pesaba sobre toda la filosofía – „ es imposible hablar sobre la
mente“… – o se habla del tratamiento o se habla no sé de qué pero no de la
mente. Después de las ciencias cognitivas se llegó a la conclusión de que
habría que hablar sobre la mente.
Yo recuerdo algo con insistencia: Adriano Olivetti, que era un gran hombre,
empleaba ingenieros en su fábrica de ordenadores siempre que los necesitaba.
Prefería, sin embargo a titulados en Filología griega o en Filosofía y los
enviaba a la fábrica, a ver qué pasaba. Sabía que los que habían estudiado
Humanidades eran más abiertos a la innovación. Pero prefería si era posible
unas personas que tenían diplóma de filología griega o filosofía y así les
mandaba a la fábrica, para ver que pasará. Pero sabía que quien ha estudiado
ciencias humanitarias pertenece un mente abierto hacia las innovaciones.
KB: ¿ En qué trabaja Ud. ahora?
Siempre he creído y lo he dicho, que después de cumplir cincuenta años, uno ha de ocuparse únicamente de los poetas isabelinos. (rie). Las novedades hay que dejarlas a los jóvenes. Y él sabe cómo se estudian a los poetas isabelinos. No es que yo estudie, a los poetas isabelinos, pero me he apartado un poco y me ocupo de investigaciones históricas. No sé si habéis visto el gran volumen dedicado a la historia del pensamiento medieval. Actualmente hago una recopilación de mis escritos semióticos. Serán aproximadamente tres mil páginas. Ahora mismo todos ellos están en las manos de un hombre quien tiene la tarea de igualar la bibliografía. Pero sin tocar los textos apartados. Tiene que compaginarlos, ponerlos en orden. Se publicarán en dos volúmenes con idéntico diseño. Algo semejante de un regalo funeral predestinado a ser depositado en la pirámide, junto con el faraón muerto. (ríe)
Y luego sabéis que la línea de mi vida es rara (muestra su palma), se interrumpe en la mitad, es decir que debería morir a mis cincuenta años, pero después continúa. Y así ocurrió: en la mitad de mi vida empecé a escribir novelas. O sea, existe una vida lateral.
KB: Ha emprendido Ud. un viaje diferente, puede que sea más satisfactorio…
UE: Sí, por lo menos más divertido. Ahora tengo una novela nueva. Ya escrita. Una presentación grotesca del periodismo. (…) La historia de un periódico que se parece un poco al de Berlusconi, aunque el argumento se desarrolla en 1992, antes de que Berlusconi entrara en la política.
KB: ¿Qué podemos esperar, qué resultará de los congresos?
UE: Cómo ha resultado un congreso se entiende sólo después. Cuando preparamos el congreso de 1974 no esperamos que tuviera la divulgación que tuvo. Era posible que se diera una mínima falta de comunicación para que llegaran tan sólo 100 personas y que nadie volviera a hablar de semiótica. Lo que pasa después del congreso es que no se elabora ningún documento dogmático. Sí se prepara la publicación de las Actas y en las ellas se puede encontrar lo que hay. Depende de la riqueza y las novedades que contienen las
KB: ¿Qué les desearía Ud. a los participantes?
UE: ¿Qué desearles a los semióticos? Que defiendan el uso del papel. Defended el papel, no aprendáis únicamente online! Porque llegará el gran blackout, todo desaparecerá y sólo vuestros libros permanecerán (ríe).
(La traducción en español: Irene Guíteva)