CFP: Lexia n. 14: Ecstasy

CALL FOR PAPERS

Lexia n. 14: Ecstasy

Lexia, the international, peer-reviewed journal of CIRCE, the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Communication of the University of Torino, Italy, invites contributions to be published in issue n. 14 of the new series.

The topic of the forthcoming issue is “Ecstasy”.

In several historical periods, socio-cultural contexts, and textual genres, ecstasy is evoked as a state in which semiosis stops, meaningfulness dissolves into meaninglessness, the presence of sense into its absence, and differences are absorbed into unity. Yet, in order to be evoked, ecstasy must be represented through semiotic forms, that is, through differences that establish the sense and meaningfulness of ecstasy itself. Issue n. 14 of Lexia will primarily address, from a semiotic point of view, the paradoxical contradiction between the desire to evoke, represent, and describe ecstatic states and the impossibility of doing it without betraying their innermost character, i.e., the bracketing of semiosis.

Ecstasy has been frequently experienced, evoked, represented, and described in various religious cultures, and especially in their mystical trends. Nevertheless, issue n. 14 of Lexia intends to consider such phenomena, and their textual manifestations, as the most striking occurrences of a more general dynamic, which can be tentatively denominated as “the self-denial of meaning”.

It seems that, in order to maintain their internal equilibrium, several semiotic systems must be able of not only give rise to meaning and sense through the dialectic between two or more different elements. They must also be able to paradoxically deny, though the symbolical resources of the systems themselves, such meaning, sense, and differences. In other words, semiotic systems must be able to produce meaning through semiosis, as well as they must be able to deny meaning through ecstasy.

Here follows a non-exclusive list of topics that the issue n. 14 of Lexia is meant to deal with:
1)         The evocation of ecstasy in mystical literature;
2)         The representation of ecstasy in the arts (painting, sculpture, architecture, music, cinema, etc.);
3)         Ecstasy in non-religious aesthetics;
4)         Dynamics of self-denial of meaning according to Peircean, structural, or Lotmanian semiotics;

Issue n. 14 of Lexia will include a selection of the papers presented at the international roundtable “The Semiotics of Ecstasis”, 2012 IASS Congress, Nanjing, China.

Here is the expected publication schedule of the volume:
December 15, 2012: deadline for contributions
January 15, 2013: deadline for referees
March 15, 2013: deadline for revised versions of contributions
June 15, 2013: publication of Lexia n. 14.

Contributions, 30,000 characters max, MLA stylesheet, with a 500 words max English abstract and 5 English key-words, should be sent to massimo.leone@unito.it

Languages/lingue/langues/lenguas: English, Italiano, Français, Español [other languages if reviewers are available]

See and download the CFP in English, Italiano, Français, Español: Call for papers Lexia n.14