Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture

Abstract

of the Mind A Semiotic Theory of CultureYuri M. LotmanIntroduction by Umberto Eco Translated by Ann ShukmanA major book by one of the initiators of cultural studies. Universe of the Mind is an ambitious, complex, and wide-ranging book that semioticians, textual critics, and those interested in cultural studies will find stimulating and immensely suggestive. Journal of CommunicationSoviet semiotics offers a distinctive, richly productive approach to literary and cultural studies and of the Mind represents a summation of the intellectual career of the man who has done most to guarantee this. Slavic and East European JournalUniverse of the Mind addresses three main areas: meaning and text, culture, and history. The result is a full-scale attempt to demonstrate the workings of the semiotic space or intellectual world. Part One is concerned with the ways that texts generate meaning. Part Two addresses Lotman s central idea of the semiosphere the domain in which all semiotic systems can function presented through an analogy with the global biosphere. Part Three focuses on semiotics from the point of view of history.A seminal text in cultural semiotics, the book s ambitious scope also makes it applicable to disciplines outside The book will be of great interest to those concerned with cultural studies, anthropology, Slavic studies, critical theory, philosophy, and historiography.Yuri Mikhailovich Lotman is the founder of the Moscow-Tartu School and the initiator of the discipline of cultural semiotics.