Semiosalong is the afterhours Tartu semiotic salon, active since 2011

Oscar Miyamoto is a PhD student at the University of Tartu Department of Semiotics. His research interests include Peircean semiotics, biosemiotics and episodic memory. He is currently writing his dissertation about the semiotic modeling of memory systems in non-human animals. Here is the abstract for his talk:

"Ever wondered why Latin-Americans come to study semiotics, specifically, in Tartu? Spanish is the answer! You name it: Lotman, Saussure, Jakobson, Kristeva, Greimas, Eco, and Peirce. All of them have been spiced up by Spanish-speaking translations that made it possible for Mexican semiotics to become a colorful but revolutionary field of study. This talk will map the international connections that made such bibliographical fact possible. For example, did you know that, back in 1997, a Cuban scholar translated Juri Lotman’s work? We will also discuss up-to-date examples of how semiotics has evolved as an interdisciplinary field or, as we say in Mexico, a wild combination of ‘chile, mole and pozole’. There is a whole Spanish-speaking semiotic universe out there, come and find out more about it!"

Here is the series theme description for Semiotics in Latin America:

Nowadays, Peircean semiotics has a strange hold on the Latin American mind, but this is not the only semiotics that happens in Latin America. The Saussurean revolution of the mid-20th century left strong traces in the subcontinent that were carried back to Europe and elsewhere by the Latin Americans escaping from the then rising dictatorships. In this climate, Latin American semiotics was born as an act of resistance; as a revolutionary practice. The following decades brought some important changes that impacted on both the region and the discipline. The second half of the 20 th century saw the institutionalization of semiotics, and with it, the tension between semiotics as a critical thinking tool and its assimilation by design and marketing programs. Yet, these seemingly opposite tendencies are of crucial importance for the dynamicity of the discipline. This adds up to the many contradictions, different points of view, and internal forces that have shaped semiotics in Latin America into an ever changing and vibrant field. The present series will dwell on the kind of semiotics specific to the region (even in the cases when it was developed abroad), from its beginnings in the 1950s to its later developments at the turn of the century. The presentations will give a glimpse of the vast landscape of Spanish and Portuguese speaking semiotic research, given that today the Latin diaspora in semiotics reaches even as far as our beloved city of Tartu.

Supported by Erasmus+ project Humanities going digital, 2020-1-CZ01-KA226-HE-094363.
The European Commission's support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

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