The Semiotics of Waste World Cultures: on Traveling, Toilets, and Belonging
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CULTURA CULTURA INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY OF CULTURE CULTURA AND AXIOLOGY Founded in 2004, Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of 2012 Culture and Axiology is a semiannual peer-reviewed journal devo- 2 2012 Vol IX No 2 ted to philosophy of culture and the study of value. It aims to pro- mote the exploration of different values and cultural phenomena in regional and international contexts. The editorial board encourages OLOGY the submission of manuscripts based on original research that are I judged to make a novel and important contribution to understan- LOSOPHY OF I ding the values and cultural phenomena in the contempo rary world. CULTURE AND AX AND CULTURE ONAL JOURNAL OF PH I INTERNAT ISBN 978-3-631-62905-5 www.peterlang.de PETER LANG CULTURA 2012_262905_VOL_9_No2_GR_A5Br.indd 1 16.11.12 12:39:44 Uhr CULTURA CULTURA INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY OF CULTURE CULTURA AND AXIOLOGY Founded in 2004, Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of 2014 Culture and Axiology is a semiannual peer-reviewed journal devo- 1 2014 Vol XI No 1 ted to philosophy of culture and the study of value. It aims to pro- mote the exploration of different values and cultural phenomena in regional and international contexts. The editorial board encourages the submission of manuscripts based on original research that are judged to make a novel and important contribution to understan- ding the values and cultural phenomena in the contempo rary world. CULTURE AND AXIOLOGY CULTURE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY INTERNATIONAL www.peterlang.com CULTURA 2014_265846_VOL_11_No1_GR_A5Br.indd.indd 1 14.05.14 17:43 Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology E-ISSN (Online): 2065-5002 ISSN (Print): 1584-1057 Advisory Board Prof. dr. Mario Perniola, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Italy Prof. dr. Paul Cruysberghs, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium Prof. dr. Michael Jennings, Princeton University, USA Prof. Emeritus dr. Horst Baier, University of Konstanz, Germany Prof. dr. José María Paz Gago, University of Coruña, Spain Prof. dr. Maximiliano E. Korstanje, John F. Kennedy University, Buenos Aires, Argentina Prof. dr. Nic Gianan, University of the Philippines Los Baños, Philippines Prof. dr. Alexandru Boboc, Correspondent member of the Romanian Academy, Romania Prof. dr. Teresa Castelao-Lawless, Grand Valley State University, USA Prof. dr. Richard L. Lanigan, Southern Illinois University, USA Prof. dr. Fernando Cipriani, G.d’Annunzio University Chieti-Pescara, Italy Prof. dr. Elif Cirakman, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey Prof. dr. David Cornberg, University Ming Chuan, Taiwan Prof. dr. Carmen Cozma, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University Iassy, Romania Prof. dr. Nancy Billias, Department of Philosophy, Saint Joseph College, Hartford, USA Prof. dr. Christian Möckel, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany Prof. dr. Leszek S. Pyra, Pedagogical University of Cracow, Poland Prof. dr. A. L. Samian, National University of Malaysia Prof. dr. Dimitar Sashev, University of Sofia, Bulgaria Prof. dr. Kiymet Selvi, Anadolu University, Istanbul, Turkey Prof. dr. Traian D. Stănciulescu, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University Iassy, Romania Prof. dr. Gloria Vergara, University of Colima, Mexico Prof. dr. Devendra Nath Tiwari, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India Prof. dr. Massimo Leone, University of Torino, Italy Prof. dr. Christian Lazzeri, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, France Prof. dr. Asunción López-Varela Azcárate, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain Editorial Board Editor-in-Chief: Co-Editors: Prof. dr. Nicolae Râmbu Prof. dr. Aldo Marroni Faculty of Philosophy and Social- Facoltà di Scienze Sociali Political Sciences Università degli Studi G. d’Annunzio Alexandru Ioan Cuza University Via dei Vestini, 31, 66100 Chieti B-dul Carol I, nr. 11, 700506 Iasi, Romania Scalo, Italy [email protected] [email protected] Executive Editor: PD Dr. Till Kinzel Dr. Simona Mitroiu Englisches Seminar Human Sciences Research Department Technische Universität Braunschweig, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University Bienroder Weg 80, Lascar Catargi, nr. 54, 700107 Iasi, Romania 38106 Braunschweig, Germany [email protected] [email protected] Editorial Assistant: Dr. Marius Sidoriuc Designer: Aritia Poenaru Cultura International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology Vol. 9, No. 2 (2012) Editor-in-Chief Nicolae Râmbu Guest Editor: Asunción López-Varela Azcárate PETER LANG Frankfurt am Main · Berlin · Bern · Bruxelles · New York · Oxford · Wien Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. Umschlagabbildung: © Aritia Poenaru ISSN 2065-5002 ISBN 978-3-631-62905-5 © Peter Lang GmbH Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften Frankfurt am Main 2012 All rights reserved. All parts of this publication are protected by copyright. Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution. This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems. www.peterlang.de CONTENTS SEMIOTICS OF WORLD CULTURES Asunción LÓPEZ-VARELA 7 Introduction to Semiotics of World Cultures Wenceslao CASTAÑARES 13 Lines of Development in Greek Semiotics Oana COGEANU 33 In the Beginning Was the Triangle: A Semiological Essay Qingben LI & Jinghua GUO 45 Rethinking the Relationship between China and the West: A Multi- Dimensional Model of Cross-Cultural Research focusing on Literary Adaptations Ömer Naci SOYKAN 61 On the Relationships between Syntax and Semantics with regard to the Turkish Language Dan LUNGU 77 Translation and Dissemination in PostCommunist Romanian Literature Yi CHEN 87 Semiosis of Translation in Wang Wei’s and Paul Celan’s Hermetic Poetry Lars ELLESTRÖM 103 The Paradoxes of Mail Art: How to Build an Artistic Media Type Benson O. IGBOIN 123 The Semiotic of Greetings in Yoruba Culture Ulani YUNUS & Dominiq TULASI 143 Batik Semiotics as a Media of Communication in Java Nadezhda NIKOLENKO 151 Semiosis and Nomadic Art in Eurasia Susi FERRARELLO 163 Husserl’s Theory of Intersubjectivity Dennis IOFFE 175 The Cultural ‘Text of Behaviour’: The Moscow-Tartu School and the Religious Philosophy of Language Nicolito A. GIANAN 195 Philosophy and Dealienation of Culture: Instantiating the Filipino Experience Diego BUSIOL 207 The Many Names of Hong Kong: Mapping Language, Silence and Culture in China I-Chun WANG 227 The Semiosis of Imperialism: Boadicea or the 17th-Century Iconography of a Barbarous Queen Massimo LEONE 237 The Semiotics of Waste World Cultures: On Traveling, Toilets, and Belonging 10.5840/cultura20129217 Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology 9(2)/2012: 237-258 The Semiotics of Waste World Cultures: On Traveling, Toilets, and Belonging Massimo LEONE Dipartimento di Filosofia, Università di Torino Via Sant’Ottavio 20 10124 Torino Italy [email protected] Abstract. Tourism industry is increasingly stripping traveling of one of its most fun- damental anthropological and existential values: its being a laboratory in which trav- elers can temporarily experience the disruption of their regime of sedentary belong- ing, protected by a plan of return. According to this perspective, non-touristy travel- ing is one of the best ways to test the limits of one’s tolerance to cultural diversity and acknowledge, as a consequence, the identity of one’s cultural and existential ‘home.’ Yet, modern and contemporary travelogues mostly extol the traveler’s hero- ic capacity to overcome the limits of tolerance. Claiming that such emphasis stems from the colonial desire to domesticate and assimilate the world and its diversity, the article proposes to subvert this logic and to replace panoramic travelogues, dominated by the will power of subjects, with prosopopoeic travelogues, that tell the stories of how the things of the world, relics of centuries of civilization, reject travelers and their desire of domestication and conquest. As an example of this sub- version, the article proposes a semiotic exploration of toilets, their variety, and their ‘cultural resistance.’ Keywords: travel, tourism, travel literature, cultural colonialism, toilets, semiotics INTRODUCTION The present article claims that in most post-modern societies the experi- ence of traveling is constructed in such a way as to prevent travelers from achieving the most important existential awareness traveling can offer: not the feeling of how beautiful traveling is – a feeling that is un- ceasingly sold and bought in the contemporary market of tourism – but the opposite feeling of how ugly traveling is. Indeed, as the present arti- cle seeks to make it clear, it is only by coming to terms with the intensity of transition entailed by a journey that travelers understand the meaning of frontiers, of crossing them, of nostalgia for a lost regime of sedentary belonging (Leone, forthcoming), and of despair in the situation of those who, like migrants, travel without the certainty of return. On the contra- ry, the present-day tourist industry downplays the intensity of transition 237 Massimo Leone / The Semiotics of Waste World Cultures implied by traveling while exalting its extension of distance, with the consequence that flocks of tourists currently travel from the economical- ly most advanced