Cura del senso e critica sociale. Ricognizione della semiotica italiana

Abstract

When a discipline starts looking back to write its own history, it is certainly in crisis. This is not the case for semiotics today in Italy, where it is in a moment of strong growth, both from the point of view of research trends and from the academic and cultural point of view. Notwithstanding the resistance (corporative? ideological? political?) to the development of the paradigm of studies on texts and socio-cultural models, Italian semiotics is experiencing euphoric intellectual growth: it has reaffirmed its programmes of action and passion, it has equipped itself with the appropriate instruments of investigation, it has passed trials and counter-trials, it has achieved many results: and it is receiving due recognition. This book offers a survey of it, with a journey through its main fields of study: image, food, religion, culture, media, audiovisual, cognition, music, advertising, fashion, memory, politics, law... Here appears the lowest common denominator of a scientific study that cares about historical and ethnic phenomena: society is a body with limbs and limbs whose symptoms must be observed closely. Semiologists analyse and interpret it with the political commitment of translators of what is happening.