Lecture Series Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Journal „SIGN SYSTEMS STUDIES“, Autumn, 2014, The Department of Semiotics, Unioversity of Tartu, Estonia

LECTURE SERIES CELEBRATING THE 50th ANNIVERSARY OF THE JOURNAL „SIGN SYSTEMS STUDIES“, AUTUMN, 2014, THE DEPARTMENT OF SEMIOTICS, UNIVERSITY OF TARTU, ESTONIA

This year we will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of our journal “Sign Systems Studies”, the oldest academic journal of semiotics in the world.

A lecture series “Lectures on the study of sign systems” will be held during the autumn months of 2014. Guests will include Russian philologist and researcher in Juri Lotman’s archive Igor Pilshchikov, historians Carlo Ginzburg and Marek Tamm, orientalist Märt Läänemets, cultural psychologist Peeter Tulviste, narratologist Marina Grišakova, media researcher Indrek Ibrus, writers Berk Vaher ja Valdur Mikita, Russian philologist Ljubov Kisseljova, archaeologist Valter Lang, semioticians Daniele Monticelli, Mihhail Lotman, Peeter Torop and Ülle Pärli.

Also, as part of the celebrations, a conference will be held in the beginning of December, with the plenary lecture by Edna Andrews.

Many of the lectures in the series will be held in Estonian, but in September we will also have two lectures in English. Here is some information about them.

Igor Pilshchikov: “The Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics in Transnational Perspective”. 17.09, at 16.15, at Jakobi 2-306

The lecture will focus on

• the evolution of structural and semiotic approaches to languages, literatures and cultures in Estonia, and the role of “Sign Systems Studies”;
• the continuity and transfer of ideas and organizational forms between Russian formalism, Polish formalism, Czech interwar structuralism and, finally, post-WWII Estonian, Russian, Italian, and French structuralism and semiotics;
• the influence of TMS on literary theory and semiotics of culture in Europe and worldwide, and the prospects for its recalibration in the context of contemporary cultural and literary theory.

Carlo Ginzburg: “Dialogue as Fight, Dialogue as Challenge”. 24.09, at 16.15, at Jakobi 2-306

Abstract. For many years, I have been trying to develop in many different directions Mikhail Bakhtin’s  reflections on the dialogic dimension.  I would like to illustrate this point,  focusing on a few case studies, related to my own research as a historian.

Here is the official link to the lectures (in English):

http://www.flfi.ut.ee/en/department-semiotics/conferences-and-seminars-association-department-semiotics

And on Facebook: www.facebook.com/sisyst50

Here is the link to the NEW official website for the Sign Systems Studies: http://www.sss.ut.ee/