Sign can denote any of the following: In astrology sign is often used to mean the Sun sign. In communication sign or signing refers to communicating via hand gestures, such as sign language. In computing, the digits where one bit among them tells the number is either negative or non-negative are called signed, otherwise unsigned. See also: Signedness In divination a sign is an omen, an event or occurrence believed to fortell the future. In lingu ...

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Roland Barthes, Roland Barthes - Life, Roland Barthes - Description of his work, Roland Barthes - Works, Roland Barthes - Works on Roland Barthes

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Barthes (pronounced BART) was born in Cherbourg, Manche. His father died while he was young, and he and his mother moved to Paris in 1924, his mother working as a bookbinder. Barthes studied at the Sorbonne. In 1934 he became infected with tuberculosis. From 1939 to 1949, he lived in sanatoriums and taught intermittently in schools at Biarritz, Bayonne, Paris, and Bucharest (1939-1949). From 1949 he moved into teaching in higher education. In 1980, he met his death on a Pari ...

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Roland Barthes, Roland Barthes - Life, Roland Barthes - Description of his work, Roland Barthes - Works, Roland Barthes - Works on Roland Barthes

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Cultural studies combines sociology, social theory, literary theory, film/video studies, cultural anthropology and art history/criticism to study cultural phenomena in industrial societies. Cultural studies researchers often concentrate on how a particular phenomenon relates to matters of ideology, race, social class, and/or gender. Cultural studies concerns itself with the meaning and practices of everyday life. Cultural practices comprise the ways people do particular things (such as watching television, or eating out) in a given culture. Particular meanings atta ...

Including:

• Cultural studies - Overview
• Cultural studies - Approaches
• Cultural studies - Compare

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Jouissance is a French term which translated means "enjoyment" and is contrasted with plaisir. In every sense of the word it is whatever "gets you off". Something that gives the subject a way out of its normative subjectivity through transcendent bliss whether that bliss or orgasmic rapture be found in texts, films, works of art or sexual spheres; excess as opposed to utility. It is a popular term in postmodernism and queer theory used by Roland Barthes, Jacques Lacan, Judith Butler, and others. Leo Bersani considers jouissance as intrinsicly ...

Including:

• Jouissance - Source

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Algirdas Julius Greimas, or Algirdas Julien Greimas (born March 9, 1917 in Tula, died 1992 in Paris), was a linguist who contributed to the theory of semiotics, and also researched Lithuanian mythology. Greimas studied law in Lithuania, and linguistics in Grenoble (1936-1939). In 1939 he returned to Lithuania for his military service. In 1944 he returned to France, and in 1949 he received his PhD from the Sorbonne. He lectured at the universities of Alexandria where he met Roland Barthes with whom he maintained a close r ...

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Louis Pierre Althusser (October 16, 1918 - October 23, 1990) was a Marxist philosopher. He was born in Algeria and studied at the prestigious École Normale Supérieure in Paris, where he eventually became Professor of Philosophy. He was a leading academic proponent of the French Communist Party and his arguments were a response to multiple threats to the ideological foundations of that socialist project. These included both the threat from an empiricism which was beginning to invade Marxist sociology and economics, and a threa ...

Including:

• Louis Althusser - Biographical information
• Louis Althusser - Early Life
• Louis Althusser - Health
• Louis Althusser - Post-War
• Louis Althusser - 1980s
• Louis Althusser - Thought
• Louis Althusser - The 'Epistemological Break'
• Louis Althusser - Practices
• Louis Althusser - Contradiction and Overdetermination
• Louis Althusser - Ideological State Apparatuses
• Louis Althusser - Influence

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The word mythology (from the Greek μυϑολογία mythología, "storytelling" [1]) literally means the (oral) retelling of myths – stories that a particular culture believes to be true and that use the supernatural to interpret natural events and to explain the nature of the universe and humanity. In modern usage, "mythology" is either the body of myths from a particular culture or religion (as in Greek mythology, Egyptian mythology or Norse mythology) or the ...

Including:

• Mythology - Definition
• Mythology - Religion and mythology
• Mythology - Classifications
• Mythology - Related concepts
• Mythology - Formation of myths
• Mythology - Myths as depictions of historical events
• Mythology - Other theories
• Mythology - Modern mythology
• Mythology - Myths by region
• Mythology - Africa
• Mythology - Asia non-Middle East
• Mythology - Australia and Oceania
• Mythology - Europe
• Mythology - Middle East
• Mythology - North America
• Mythology - South America and Mesoamerica
• Mythology - Mythological archetypes
• Mythology - Mythological creatures
• Mythology - Books on mythology

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An author is the person who creates a written work, such as a book, story, article or the like. This can be short or long, fiction or nonfiction, poetry or prose, technical or literature. In particular, the word is used to refer to a person doing it for pay (as a profession). Author - Role in critical theory. One key issue in literary theory is the relationship between the meaning of a literary text and its author's conscious intent. The phrase "Death of the Author" was popularized by R ...

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• Author - Role in critical theory

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A camera lucida is an optical device used as a drawing aid by artists. It was patented in 1806 by William Hyde Wollaston. There seems to be evidence that the camera lucida was actually nothing but a reinvention of a device clearly described 200 years earlier by Johannes Kepler in his Dioprice (1611). By the 19th century, Kepler’s description had totally fallen into oblivion, so that nobody challenged Wollaston’s claim. The term "camera lucida" is Wollaston‘s. (cf. Edmund Hoppe, Geschichte der Optik, Leipzig 1926) The came ...

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The term contemporary philosopher refers not just to figures who are alive, but also those who passed away within the past three decades, irrespective of when their major works were written or when their work was most popular. Similarly, "contemporary philosophical movements" may refer to philosophies that have actually been under discussion for several decades. It is almost always difficult, some would say impossible, to describe the shape of any particular era while it is happening. Controversy does not imply later imp ...

Including:

• Contemporary philosophy - Philosophers of the phenomenological structuralist and post-structuralist schools
• Contemporary philosophy - Philosophers of the analytical school
• Contemporary philosophy - Some philosophical movements

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By category Medieval 16th Century - 17th Century 18th Century -19th Century 20th Century - Contemporary Chronological list Writers by category Novelists - Playwrights Poets - Essayists Short Story Writers Alain Robbe-Grillet (1922-) is a French writer and filmmaker, born in Brest, Finistère, France into a family of engineers and scientists. He was trained as an agricultural engineer. In 1944 the National Institute of Agronomy awarded him a diploma. Later, he worked ...

Including:

• Alain Robbe-Grillet - Bibliography
• Alain Robbe-Grillet - Novels
• Alain Robbe-Grillet - Short story
• Alain Robbe-Grillet - Essays
• Alain Robbe-Grillet - Romanesques
• Alain Robbe-Grillet - Cine-novels
• Alain Robbe-Grillet - Filmography

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Below is a list of basic topics in communication -- topics which will help the beginner become familiar with the field of communications. For a comprehensive list, see List of communication topics. Category:Human communication List of basic communication topics - General. Alphabet -- Communication -- Communication theory -- Development communication -- Dialectic -- General semantics -- Information -- Information theory -- Language -- Library -- Printing -- Propaganda -- Public speaking -- Spee ...

Including:

• List of basic communication topics - General
• List of basic communication topics - Fields
• List of basic communication topics - People
• List of basic communication topics - Media and Technology
• List of basic communication topics - Theories Schools and Approaches
• List of basic communication topics - Issues and Topics

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In semiotics, the value of a sign depends on its position and relations in the system of signification and upon the particular codes being used. Value semiotics - Definitions. Drawing from the original definition proposed by Saussure (1857-1913), a sign has two parts: as a signifier, i.e. it will have a form that a person can see, touch, smell, and/or hear, and as the signified, i.e. it will represent an idea or mental construct of a thing rather than the t ...

Including:

• Value semiotics - Definitions
• Value semiotics - Methods

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Semiotics, or semiology, is the study of signs, both individually and grouped in sign systems. It includes the study of how meaning is made and understood. Semioticians also sometimes examine how organisms, no matter how big or small, make predictions about and adapt to their semiotic niche in the world (see Semiosis). Semiotics theorises at a general level about signs, while the study of the communication of information ...

Including:

• Semiotics - Clarification of terms
• Semiotics - History
• Semiotics - Some important semioticians
• Semiotics - Current applications
• Semiotics - Branches
• Semiotics - Select bibliography

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Scholars in the United Kingdom and the United States developed somewhat different versions of cultural studies after the field's inception in the late 1970s. The British version of cultural studies was developed in the 1960s mainly under the influence of Richard Hoggart and Stuart Hall at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham. This included overtly political, left-wing views, and criticisms of popular culture as 'capitalist' mass culture; it absorbed some of the ideas of the Frankfurt School critique of ...

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Cultural studies, Cultural studies - Overview, Cultural studies - Approaches, Cultural studies - Compare

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This test is a metalingual subjective system for analysing textual or other material. It has evolved from a limited method for investigating the structure of individual signs (per Roman Jakobson). Its primary uses are to: identify distinctive signifiers, define their significance, and divide material into paradigmatic classes and identify the codes to which the signifiers belong (Roland Barthes). The initial assumption is that the communication to be analysed represents both a cognitive use of the ...

See also:

Commutation test semiotics, Commutation test semiotics - Discussion, Commutation test semiotics - The commutation test, Commutation test semiotics - The process, Commutation test semiotics - An example

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Postmodern philosophy - Early influences in postmodern philosophy. Postmodern philosophy originated primarily in France during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. However, it was greatly influenced by the writings of several earlier 20th century philosophers, including phenomenologists Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger, psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, structuralist Roland Barthes, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Postmodern philosophy also drew from the world of the arts, particularly Marcel Duchamp and artists who practiced collage. See also:

Postmodern philosophy, Postmodern philosophy - History of postmodern philosophy, Postmodern philosophy - Early influences in postmodern philosophy, Postmodern philosophy - Early postmodern philosophers, Postmodern philosophy - Later postmodern philosophers, Postmodern philosophy - Postmodernism and post-structuralism, Postmodern philosophy - Postmodernism versus postmodernity, Postmodern philosophy - Links

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Althusser's earlier works include the influential volume Reading Capital, which collects the work of Althusser and his students on an intensive philosophical re-reading of Marx's Capital. The book reflects on the philosophical status of Marxist theory as "critique of political economy," and on its object. The current English edition of this work includes only the essays of Althusser and Étienne Balibar, while the original French edition contains additional contributions from Jacques Ranciere and Pierre Macherey, among others. ...

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Louis Althusser, Louis Althusser - Biographical information, Louis Althusser - Early Life, Louis Althusser - Health, Louis Althusser - Post-War, Louis Althusser - 1980s, Louis Althusser - Thought, Louis Althusser - The 'Epistemological Break', Louis Althusser - Practices, Louis Althusser - Contradiction and Overdetermination, Louis Althusser - Ideological State Apparatuses, Louis Althusser - Influence

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In order to consider mythology, it is first necessary to consider what is meant by the term myth. The ancient Greek Μυθος originally meant simply word or speech, and by extension, a story or narrative. This quickly took on the sense of fiction, and both Pindar (d. 443 BC) and Plato (d. ca. 347 BC) contrast Μυθος with Λογος as "historical truth." Many ancient usages of Μυθος are specifically as fiction; see here for details in the Liddell-Scott- ...

See also:

Mythology, Mythology - What is mythology?, Mythology - Religion and mythology, Mythology - Classifications, Mythology - Related concepts, Mythology - Formation of myths, Mythology - Myths as depictions of historical events, Mythology - Other theories, Mythology - Modern mythology, Mythology - Myths by region, Mythology - Africa, Mythology - Asia non-Middle East, Mythology - Australia and Oceania, Mythology - Europe, Mythology - Middle East, Mythology - North America, Mythology - South America and Mesoamerica, Mythology - Mythological archetypes, Mythology - Mythological creatures, Mythology - Books on mythology

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