Juri Lotman and the Semiotics of Culture

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Juri Lotman and the Semiotics of Culture

Application deadlines

May 17Application deadline

7 June–26 July 2021E-course

7 – 16 August (postponed to 2022) Summer course in Tartu

APPLY NOW CONTACT US

Juri Lotman and the Semiotics of Culture

Program description

Juri Lotman is a distinguished semiotician, literary scholar and cultural historian, versatile and innovative thinker whose ideas have had extensive impact on semiotics and humanities in general. Lotman and his fellow members of the Tartu Moscow School of Semiotics founded the semiotics of culture as a study of the semiotic structures and mechanisms that constitute culture as a dynamic semiotic system. The aim of this program is to give an introduction to Lotman’s semiotic theory of culture, its theoretical background and context, core concepts and approaches as well as new developments and applications of his theory in current semiotics and cultural sciences. The program offers a deeper understanding of semiotic mechanisms of culture and a set of tools for practical analysis of culture that would afford new insights into contemporary cultural dynamics.

The program is divided in two parts.

I part: E-course, 7 June – 26 July (2 ECTS)
The first part of the course gives an overview of the theoretical foundations of the semiotics of culture developed by Juri Lotman and the Tartu-Moscow Semiotic School. The focus is on the main theoretical views and concepts of Juri Lotman’s semiotic theory of culture.
The 8-week program is for those who want to introduce themselves with the core ideas of Juri Lotman’s cultural semiotics and their theoretical context.

II part: Summer University in Tartu, 7 – 16 August (4 ECTS) postponed to 2022.
The second part of the course focuses on the contemporary applications of Juri Lotman’s ideas in various research areas from arts and media to education and human-environment interactions. The 2-week program is for those interested in practical semiotic analysis as well as deeper understanding of contemporary culture based on insights from Juri Lotman’s semiotics.
Although we encourage our participants to take part in the full program, it is also possible to choose either of the parts separately.

Participants of the course learn to:

understand key concepts and ideas in Lotman’s theory and are able to associate them with the current cultural context;
comprehend culture as a semiotic system and learn to distinguish its central features, mechanisms and processes;
appreciate the historical and contemporary developments in the field of semiotics of culture;
identify and critically analyse diverse cultural, social, historical and environmental phenomena from the perspective of Lotman’s theories;
discover possibilities for interdisciplinary research and connections between semiotics of culture and various other research fields like media, translation, conflict and memory studies etc.
understand the semiotic mechanisms of culture, the role of cultural self-models in cultural dynamics and intercultural relations

Admission to Juri Lotman and the Semiotics of Culture

Entry requirements

Online application form
Motivation letter (up to 1.5 page)
Transcript of academic records
Copy of the passport

PS: Only complete applications including all annexes submitted by the deadline will be considered for selection.

Applications are evaluated based on

Motivation letter (up to 1.5 page) that demonstrates the applicant’s motivation to participate, explains his/her expectations about the programme and how participation in the summer programme is connected with his/her studies and interests, and how the applicant plans to use the gained experience and knowledge in the future.

PROGRAMME DETAILS

Level: BA and MA

Credits: 6 ECTS

Language: English

Location: online and in Tartu

Time: online 7 June – 26 July; in Tartu 7 – 16 August; 2021 (postponed to 2022)

Programme fee:
Online form and programme in Tartu (6 ECTS): 950€ (with accommodation 1350€)
Programme in Tartu (4 ECTS): 700 € (with accommodation 1100€)
E-course 250 € .

Expected number of participants: 9

TUITION FEE AND SCHOLARSHIPS

Programme fee:

1350 € includes e-course, tuition, cost of the study visits, cultural and social programme, services of the host university with accommodation in double rooms.
Alternatively participants can arrange their own housing and in this case the tuition fee for the academic and cultural programme is 950€.

Students are responsible for their travel and travel insurance (visa arrangements, if needed) from their home country to Tartu and back to their home country.

Scholarships available: Estonian Scholarship Programme for Short Courses

ABOUT JURI LOTMAN

Juri Lotman has been considered one of the most innovative cultural theorists in the 20th century. He established the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics – an international group of scholars with diverse background from literary studies, linguistics, mathematics to orientalistics, unified by common interest in semiotics. Their collectively written Theses on the Semiotic Study of Cultures (1973) was the programmatic work initiating semiotics of culture as a field of studies.

Educated under renowned Russian literary scholars like Vladimir Propp, Boris Tomashevsky, Grigory Gukovsky and others, Lotman combined in his works the rich tradition of Russian literary and art theory with the then emergent fields of semiotics and structuralism. Yet his approach never remained limited to either literature and arts or structuralism. His extensive knowledge on cultural history, influence of cybernetics and information theory led to his intellectual movement towards the more holistic, organic and dynamic modelling of culture as a complex, self-organising system. All these rich influences allowed him to create highly original theory of culture.

E-COURSE

The course offers an introduction to Juri Lotman’s semiotic theory of culture and gives an overview of the foundations of Tartu-Moscow Semiotic School. The focus is on the main theoretical views and concepts of Juri Lotman’s semiotics such as modelling systems, text, culture, and semiosphere, cultural autocommunication and self-description, translation, cultural memory and creativity, gradual and unpredictable processes in culture etc. Students will have the chance to explore these ideas through audio-lectures, Lotman’s own writings as well as through his commentators and various additional sources. The lectures and reading materials are accompanied by tests and assignments.

Learning outcomes
Students will learn to:

understand key concepts and ideas in Lotman’s theory,
appreciate the developments in Lotman’s theoretical thought and its context,
acquire the fundamental terminology of the Tartu-Moscow school
comprehend culture as a semiotic system and to distinguish its central features, mechanisms and processes;
understand the semiotic mechanisms of culture, the role of modelling systems, cultural self-models and translation in cultural dynamics.

Course details and assessment:
The course is web-based and takes place from 7th of June to 26st of July.
The learning environment of the course: http://moodle.ut.ee

The course is made up of seven lessons and final written assessment. Each lesson consists of a pre-recorded audio-lecture, a reading assignment and a task based on the lecture and reading materials.
A new lesson will be published every Monday morning and students will have a week to work through the materials and complete the task by Sunday evening. The final assignment is a short essay (3-5 pages) based on one of the concepts discussed in the lessons. Throughout the course, students will have the possibility to consult the organizers regarding any questions that may arise in the process of learning.

Timetable:

07.06 I lesson: Introduction: Juri Lotman, the Tartu-Moscow Semiotic School
14.06 II lesson: Models and modelling systems
21.06 III lesson: Text and translation
28.06 IV lesson: Memory and creativity
5.07 V lesson: Autocommunication and self-description
12.07 VI lesson: Explosion and unpredictability
19.07 VII lesson: Conclusion: (Dynamic model of semiotic systems and) semiosphere
26.07 Deadline for the final written assessment

PRELIMINARY PROGRAMME FOR TARTU

Semiotic theory of culture & applications of the theory
The course gives an overview of relevant theoretical and philosophical perspectives necessary for appreciating Lotman’s theory and intellectual approach, from Russian literary theory and various semiotic theories to the theory of complex systems etc. However, the course puts an emphasis on the ways Lotman’s ideas are used and developed further in order to analyse a variety of processes in contemporary culture and society.

Languages of culture as modelling systems
Theory of modelling systems is one of the most important contributions of Tartu-Moscow School to semiotic theory. Understanding diverse cultural languages as modelling systems used for creating world models (texts), and learning to evaluate the modelling capacity of these systems is central for understanding information processes and mechanisms in culture. The course introduces Lotman’s approach to semiotic mechanisms shared by arts and media as cognitive-semiotic systems. Theoretical overviews are accompanied with practical analysis.

Textuality of culture: texts and textualization
Textuality of culture was one of the central approaches of Lotman that helped to connect the analysis of individual texts as information bearing models and their interrelationships to the broader functioning of culture as a mechanism that creates, stores and communicates information. We learn how to use textuality as a tool for analysing culture, cultural memory as well as social and environmental spaces. In addition, the course addresses new textual formats and functioning of new media spaces.

Relations between languages and texts in culture: translation, inter- and transmediality
Lotman’s understanding of communication as translation, the role of translatability and untranslatability as mechanisms of cultural cohesion and as cultural innovation has been used fruitfully in translation studies and in media studies. The course introduces Lotman’s approach to translation and its application in contemporary research in contemporary translation and media studies including topics like transmediality and new media.

Cultural memory, history and affective communication
Lotman’s writings on history and memory can serve as a valuable dialogue partner for contemporary history theory, cultural history and cultural memory studies, and enhance understanding of intercultural relations. His focus on the dynamic nature of collective memory and emphasis on the creative function as well as the importance of forgetting remain topical among contemporary memory scholars. We apply Lotman’s ideas for the analysis of present-day historical cultures, processes of remembering and forgetting and memory conflicts. Also, Lotman’s approach to semiotics of fear is applied to analyse various contemporary socio-cultural discourses.

Semiosphere, cultural autocommunication and self-models

The central topic and gathering point of all the above mentioned topics is Lotman’s theory of culture, his model of semiosphere and discussion of continuous and explosive processes in culture. Understanding culture as complex self-descriptive and self-organizing system combines the issues of history and cultural memory, textuality and sign systems, providing thus tools for holistic cultural analysis across all the levels of culture. But it also offers a practical tool for analysing and designing cultural innovations.

The course I participated in combined exciting and thought-provoking lectures delivered by the prominent professors of the University of Tartu, inspiring workshops where you could change your perception of history, culture, understanding of the world and your place in it. What is more, this course will be of interest to students studying philosophy, culture studies, history, linguistics, languages or everyone interested in semiotics.

In addition, during the summer school in Tartu we spend time actively participating in city tours, inter cultural poetry reading evenings, interesting conversations and discussions with bright students from all over the world.

Mariia Polova
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Juri Lotman and the Semiotics of Culture

Application deadlines

Juri Lotman and the Semiotics of Culture

Admission to Juri Lotman and the Semiotics of Culture

Semiotics Summer University 2018