Spring/Summer 2005 - University of Toronto Press Publishing

CULTURAL STUDIESSemiotics UnboundedInterpretive Routes through the Open Network of SignsSusan Petrilli and Augusto PonzioTORONTO STUDIES IN SEMIOTICS AND COMMUNICATIONAspiring to the LandscapeOn Painting and the Subject of NaturePetra HalkesThe more human knowledge increases, the moresigns grow and, with this expansion, the more theboundaries of the science that studies signs alsogrows. In Semiotics Unbounded, Susan Petrilli andAugusto Ponzio explain the explosion of the signnetwork in the era of global communication anddiscuss the important theoretical responses offeredby semiotics. Providing a much-needed introductoryguide to the subject, Petrilli and Ponzio explorethe ever-growing frontiers of semiotics through thethought of prominent sign scholars such as CharlesPeirce, Victoria Welby, Mikhail Bakhtin, CharlesMorris, and Thomas Sebeok.In an era of global communication, a globalapproach is necessary, and what may seem to be thewhole is only a part – a view being at once globalizingand open. Each and every sign is never self-sufficientand closed but exists always in a relation of otherness.This is true of the signs forming animals and humanbeings, individuals and communities, and involves theimplication of all living beings in the life of all others.Semiotics Unbounded offers a new and original surveyof the science of signs, evaluating it in relation to theproblems of our time, not only of a scientific order,but also the problems concerning everyday social life.The idea of nature as a cultural construction hasbeen discussed extensively in postmodern theory.Less attention, however, has been paid to the underlyingmotivations shaping the ideologies of nature,in particular the desire to submit to some largerorder outside of oneself. Aspiring to the Landscapeexamines this persistent desire and how it is mademanifest in contemporary landscape art.Four installations of large-scale paintings byCanadian artists Eleanor Bond, Susan Feindel,Stephen Hutchings, and Wanda Koop are the focusof Petra Halkes’s study. The works vary widely instyle and iconography but are drawn together bythe way they invite a reflection on the troubled relationshipbetween culture and nature and our contradictoryand simultaneous longing to conquerand to succumb to nature.It is the tension between modern and postmoderninterpretations of the subject of nature thatmakes the theory and the artwork discussed inAspiring to the Landscape so important to contemporaryCanadian culture.Petra Halkes is an independent curator, painter, andart critic living in Ottawa.Susan Petrilli is an associate professor in theDepartment of Linguistic Practices and TextAnalysis at l’Università degli Studi di Bari.Augusto Ponzio is the head of the Department ofLinguistic Practices and Text Analysis at l’Universitàdegli Studi di Bari.Approx. 670 pp / 6 x 9 / April 20051 figureCloth ISBN 0-8020-8765-5 £48.00 $75.00 EApprox. 270 pp / 6 x 9 / May 200552 colour and black-and-white imagesCloth ISBN 0-8020-3894-8 £32.00 $50.00 E25