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Application Concerning : PANEUROPEAN NETWORK OF Application concerning : PANEUROPEAN NETWORK OF SEMIOTICS with the special theme of « European Culture in the Global World » I CONTENT OF THE PROJECT What is semiotics? We live in a world in which signs surround us at every moment and place. This has become an almost self-evident truth particularly in the present time of global electronic communication. It has caused dramatic changes in the traditional structures also of the European culture which has partly already steped to the new age of technology-dominated world but which simultaneously tries to keep on its achievements of national cultures and identities, democratic institutions created in the industrial period, and which moreover, to some extent, still lives in the archaic stage of development, particularly in the border areas of the Union and its newly joined members. Semiotics as the study of signs ad communication tries to answer to these challenges. The term semiotics itseolf stems from the Greek word seemeion, meaning sign, but it is not only study of the most obvious signs such as verbal languages, tones of music, visual messages, ads, logos, traffic signs, machine generated sounds, national emblems, decorations, clothes, behavior, brands, products of media and marketing etc. but also of the structures supporting and participating to their production. Ultimately semiotics as a science and disciplines studies the signification, the origin of our symbols in values, ethics, and morality. From these philosophical bases it can also exercise a more profound analysis and critics of global effects of technology than merely its efficiancy and functionality. Thus semiotics is an extremely actual science, helpins us to master the radical changes which Europe is undergoing in quite recent years in almost all fields of life. A Little History Semiotics as science finds its origins in the Antiquity, from which heritage the theory of signs was passed by medieval thinkers - studied a.o. by Umberto Eco - to the modern times until the founders of modern semiotics, the French-Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) and the American philosopher Charles S. Peirce (1834-1914), who without knowing each other laid the foundations of the study of signs. Later, semiology passed phases of structuralism under the French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss - and other French scholars Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes, Julis Kristeva, A.J. Greimas - which movement in the 1980s gave place to poststructuralist thinkers like Jacques Derrida, Pierre Bourdieu, Jean Baudrillard etc.. Simultaneously the Hungarian-.American scholar Thomas A Sebeok at Indiana University Bloomington developed empirical semiotics - which now has lead to the Baltic tradition of biosemiotics created by the Uexkülls. Another line goes from the Russian formalism in the 1910s and 1920s to Prague school in the 1930 and to the cultural semiotics by Yuri Lotman (Tartu) and his followers. Where We Are Now? The most recent development of semiotics focuses around the continental philosophy, the late A.J.Greimas and his Paris school of semiotics, the semioethics by the italian Augusto Ponzio and the existential semiotics developed by the Finnish musicologist Eero Tarasti. In this newest phase which definitely calls itself ‘neosemiotics’ as a science of the 21st century. the role of the signifying subject is emphasized. In its applications this means that semiotics scrutinizes the above-mentioned abrupt changes and impacts of globalisation not only on the level of material and technological changes of our culture and European heritage but also on what they mean for an individual subject, citizen and member of various national and regional communities and groups, and for their identities in the present day Europe. In this sense, neosemiotics continues the humanist tradition of European thought and values while at the same time as it is close to media.centered world of technology and communication. At the beginning of its history in the 20th century when semiotics started to become recognized as an academic paradigm of its own, it was discussed whether it was an approach, method or discipline. By its nature it is extremely interdisciplinary crossing over traditional boundaries of sciences: semiotics is used and applied in all the humanities, social sciences, biosciences., mathematics, arts, technical sciences - and theology. However, nowadays there is no doubt it is a science standing on its own, a discipline with an individual profile. In this sense there are a lot of chairs, institutes and research centers in all the European countries not to mention Canada, the US, Latin American and now growingly also in the Asia. In Russia after recent order by the Ministry of Education semiotics is now included in the curriculum of all the humanitieis throughout this country. So, semiotics is something extremely topical in the whole world just now. Most Important Centers However, among the most important research institutes and educational centers of semiotics in the present day Europe, regarding our project, are : 1) The International Semiotics Institute or ISI functioning Finland, founded in 1988 at Imatra to cover the whole world, regarding dissemination of information on semiotic activities globally, having its regular summer and winter schools, symposia, publishing series (Acta Semiotica Fennica, together with Indiana University Press, Bologna’s CLUEB and Sorbonne’s series). In the summer 2007 Imatra together with Helsinki University organized the IASS9, the ninth world congress of semiotics This was a sign of the international recognition the Finnish semiotics is enjoying in the entire world. Moreover, the ISI is now hosting the National Network University of Semiotics in Finland, in which 15 Finnish Universities cooperate, the University of Lapland functioning as its ‘mother’ university. This has served as an important pilot project to the future paneuropean network of semiotics. Its first period 2004-2007 has just passed by, there are about 100 students, who prepare Master’s and Doctor’s degrees with semiotic orientation to their home universities. The planning and administering this national network has given us essential practical knowledge on how such project will function in all-European level. At the same time the Finnish network will continue and is now starting its second period 2008-2011. 2) The Faculty of Media and Arts in the University of Rovaniemi, Lapland, specializing to semiotics of media, and now one of the partners and the initiators of the paneuropean network of semiotics under construction. It exercises its organizational via the ISI. 3) University of Helsinki, in which semiotics has been taught and studied since the 1990 and which now has a Study Program of Semiotics, has a chair and is just opening an international Master School of Semiotics. A close cooperation exists between Helsinki, Lapland and the ISI whose activities complete and support each other. Responsable for the Helsinki activities are Eero Tarasti and Harri Veivo. 4) Institut de l’esthetique et technologie des arts contemporaines, Paris I, Pantheon- Sorbonne, which regarding theoretical basis is in the tradition of Parisian school of semiotics (Greimas) and has already organised to major international congresses on Musical Signification; The chair of these activities is prof Costin Miereanu 5) The Southeast European center for semiotics at the New Bulgarian University in Sofia, has a full program of semiotics from master to doctor, organizes annual international seminars on semiotics, the so-called ‘Early Fall School of Semiotics’ in Bulgaria. The director of this Institute has been after Maria Popova Kristian Bankov from philosophy. The important figure is the literary semiotician Bogdan Bogdanov, the chair of the University Council. *** 6) University of Tartu, with its traditions in semiotics since Yuri Lotman, founder of the Tartu-Moscow school of cultural semiotics, and more recently since foundation of biosemiotics, dating back to Jakob v. Uexküll. Tartu University has full program and discipline of semiotics run by professors Peeter Torop and Kalevi Kull. 7) Istituto superiore di scienze umane, at the University of Bologna, directed by Umberto Eco, having full all-Italian doctoral program of semiotics, directed by Patrizia Violi. Close co-operation has already been established between the ISI of Finland and Bologna institution. 8) Department of Foreign Languages and Literature at University of Bari, Southern Italy, under the philosopher Augusto Ponzio and semiotician in women studies Susan Petrilli, and Patrizia Calefato, in cinema and cultural studies. They have likewise a full master and doctoral program in semiotics, and organize actively international conventions. Furthermore, at the global scene of semiotics one has to mention The International Association for Semiotic Studies IASS/AIS, which was founded in 1969; there are now national semiotic societies everywhere in the world, Individual branches of semiotics like visual, musical, philosophical, law, media, etc. have their own societies. There is a trend that semiotics is expanding and specializing into more and more discrete units, its ‘galaxy’ is under process of ‘explosion’ as Umberto Eco has characterized the situation. There are a lot academic publishing series in semiotics, both for monographs and magazines. Thus the institutional basis is well established. Paneuropean Network of Semiotic Centers and Schools The major schools within semiotics have their centers which foster
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