Semiology

Paolo Fabbri, among the greatest interpreters of contemporary semiotics, did not like manuals, saccharine crystallizations of the dynamics and controversies of all scientific research. Less so those of his discipline, semiotics, the science of human and social signification. Rather, he worked quite a bit to promote, explain, interpret, and critique the works of many semioticians and a number of authors who in the study of signification were nevertheless interested.

From Abjuration to Zero, passing through Clandestine, Cosmopolitics, Disinformation, Flexibility, Future, Immunity, Swearwords, Reformist, Shame and numerous other entries, the “politically incorrect lexicon” that Paolo Fabbri presents us with in “Signs of the Times” does not want to enclose the words we use within precise definitions, but to traverse with them practices of meaning, expressions, actions, passions and reasons for our contemporary living. These voices aim to be a living and experimental semiotic organism, and hope to take root in various semantic fields.

Semiotics, the theory of languages and communication, is not speculation for its own sake, but analytical practice and method. It has been applied to diverse fields, from media to literature, from image to audiovisual, from art to design, from science to politics and technology, achieving remarkable outcomes in constant dialogue with other disciplines of meaning: linguistics, philosophy, hermeneutics, ethnology, communication theory, and literary criticism.

Mastering semiotics means not surrendering to the evidence, being able to reverse the point of view, deconstructing and reconstructing the mechanisms on which much of what we live and think, desire or undergo - and thus everything to which, precisely, we give meaning and value - is based. This First Lesson in Semiotics outlines the assumptions of the science of languages and signification, its multiple disciplinary ancestry, and its progressive compacting toward a strong hypothesis of theory and critical analysis of different human and social cultures.

This books aims to demonstrate how semiotic models of textual analysis can be used to study any social reality or cultural process. In addition, it shows how semiotic models work by using examples from everyday life and social praxis, communicative processes and modes of consumption, online interactions and cross-media procedures, political experiences and scientific universes.