- Dr. Paul Cobley
Professor in Language and Media
School of Media and Performing Arts
Middlesex University
The Burroughs
London
NW4 4BT
United Kingdom
Paul Cobley
Middlesex University, Faculty of Arts and Creative Industries, Faculty Member
- Middlesex University, Media, Faculty MemberMiddlesex University, Media and Performing Arts, Faculty Memberadd
- Cybersemiotics, Biosemiotics, the work of Thomas A. Sebeok, Zoosemiotics, Subjectivity, Semiotics, and 26 moreThe Thriller Genre, Communication Theory, Narrative, Cognitive Semiotics, Cultural Semiotics, Animal Studies, Communication, Zoosemiotics (Biology), Ecosemiotics (Biology), Detective fiction and crime writing, Hardboiled crime fiction, Victorian Crime Fiction, American Crime Fiction (Literature), British Crime Fiction, Semiotics (Including Biosemiotics, Zoosemiotics and Cybersemiotics), Jakob von Uexküll, Umwelt, Thomas A. Sebeok, John Deely, Modelling Systems Theory, Peircean Semiotics, Social Semiotics, Semiotica, History of semiotics, and Medical Semioticsedit
- President of the International Association for Semiotic Studiesedit
Festschrift to Donald Favareau. Includes essays by 18 semioticians and his annotated bibliography .
Research Interests:
Thomas A. Sebeok and the Doctrine of Signs.
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Semiotics, Media Studies, Film Studies, Narrative, Genre, and 15 moreNarrative and interpretation, Narratology, Narrative Methods, Charles S. Peirce, Hermeneutics and Narrative, Narrative and Identity, Genre Theory, Narrative Analysis, Narrative Theory, Novel, Television, Narrative Inquiry, Peircean Semiotics, Film and Media Studies, and Fiction
Research Interests: Critical Theory, Semiotics, Social Theory, Philosophy Of Language, Ethics, and 15 moreHumanities, Languages and Linguistics, Marxism, Visual Culture, Cultural Theory, Biosemiotics, Zoosemiotics, Humanism, Humanism, Anti-Humanism, and Post-Humanism, Terrence Deacon, Thomas A. Sebeok, Humanities and Social Sciences, Codes, Jesper Hoffmeyer, and Visual Semiotiics
Without biosemiosis, there could be no human language. The volume presents international perspectives that have been inspired by this simple idea. The contributors open up new methods, directions and perspectives on both language in... more
Without biosemiosis, there could be no human language. The volume presents international perspectives that have been inspired by this simple idea. The contributors open up new methods, directions and perspectives on both language in general and specific human languages. Many commonplace notions (language, dialect, syntax, sign, text, dialogue, discourse, etc.) have to be rethought once due attention is given to the living roots of languages. Accordingly, the contributors unite “eternal” problems of the humanities (such as language and thought, origin of language, prelinguistic meaning- making, borders of human language and “marginal” linguistic phenomena) with new inspirations drawing from natural science. They do so with respect to issues such as: how biolinguistics relates to biosemiotics, the history and value of general linguistic and (bio)semiotic models, and how empirical work can link the study of language with biosemiotic phenomena. The volume thus begins to unify perspectives on language(s) and living systems. Biosemiotics connects the sciences with the humanities while offering a new challenge to autonomous linguistics by pointing towards new kinds of interdisciplinary fusion.
Research Interests:
Today, arguably more than at any time in the past, media are the key players in contributing to what defines reality for the citizens of Europe and beyond. This book provides an introduction to the way that the media occupy such a... more
Today, arguably more than at any time in the past, media are the key players in contributing to what defines reality for the citizens of Europe and beyond. This book provides an introduction to the way that the media occupy such a position of prominence in contemporary human existence.
This expanded and fully updated third edition of the bestselling The Media: An Introduction collects in one volume thirty-six specially commissioned essays to offer unrivalled breadth and depth for an introduction to the study of contemporary media. It addresses the fundamental questions about today's media – for example, digitisation and its effects, new distribution technologies, and the implications of convergence, all set against the backdrop of a period of profound social and economic change in Europe and globally.
Key features:
•Expert contributions on each topic
•Approachable, authoritative contributions provide a solid theoretical overview of the media industry and comprehensive empirical guide to the institutions that make up the media.
•Further Reading and related web-resource listings encourage further study.
New to this edition:
•New five part structure provides a broad and coherent approach to media: Part 1 Understanding the Media; Part 2 What Are the Media?; Part 3 The Media Environment; Part 4 Audiences, Influences and Effects; Part 5 Media Representations.
•Brand new chapters on: Approaches to Media; Media Form; Models of Media Institutions; The Media in Europe; Photography; Book Publishing; Newspapers; Magazines; Radio; Television; The Internet and the Web; News Media; Economics; Policy; Public Service Broadcasting in Europe; Censorship and Freedom of Speech; Audience Research; Sexualities; Gender; Social Class; Media and Religion; The Body, Health and Illness; Nationality and Sex Acts.
•Other chapter topics from the last edition fully updated
•A wider, more comparative focus on Europe.
https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Media.html?id=PnnKUEIhrxQC&hl=en
This expanded and fully updated third edition of the bestselling The Media: An Introduction collects in one volume thirty-six specially commissioned essays to offer unrivalled breadth and depth for an introduction to the study of contemporary media. It addresses the fundamental questions about today's media – for example, digitisation and its effects, new distribution technologies, and the implications of convergence, all set against the backdrop of a period of profound social and economic change in Europe and globally.
Key features:
•Expert contributions on each topic
•Approachable, authoritative contributions provide a solid theoretical overview of the media industry and comprehensive empirical guide to the institutions that make up the media.
•Further Reading and related web-resource listings encourage further study.
New to this edition:
•New five part structure provides a broad and coherent approach to media: Part 1 Understanding the Media; Part 2 What Are the Media?; Part 3 The Media Environment; Part 4 Audiences, Influences and Effects; Part 5 Media Representations.
•Brand new chapters on: Approaches to Media; Media Form; Models of Media Institutions; The Media in Europe; Photography; Book Publishing; Newspapers; Magazines; Radio; Television; The Internet and the Web; News Media; Economics; Policy; Public Service Broadcasting in Europe; Censorship and Freedom of Speech; Audience Research; Sexualities; Gender; Social Class; Media and Religion; The Body, Health and Illness; Nationality and Sex Acts.
•Other chapter topics from the last edition fully updated
•A wider, more comparative focus on Europe.
https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Media.html?id=PnnKUEIhrxQC&hl=en
Research Interests:
The book includes 80 articles, each focused on a concept used in biosemiotics, and commenting a particular quotation from Jesper Hoffmeyer's writings.
Research Interests:
(“This is essential reading for anyone who wishes to have an informed and up-to-date perspective on narrative” Studies in Communication Sciences 2 (2) p. 169 (2002); “Clear and precise language is Cobley’s forte, and he explicitly... more
(“This is essential reading for anyone who wishes to have an informed and up-to-date perspective on narrative” Studies in Communication Sciences 2 (2) p. 169 (2002); “Clear and precise language is Cobley’s forte, and he explicitly details his terms in a manner that neither assumes prior knowledge nor demands analytical leaps from the reader. This generally thorough review spans the social, anthropological, historical, and psychological manifestations of narrative, centering particularly on how humans make meaning and understand identity” Symploke 11 (1/2) p. 267 (2003))
(“the kind of well-informed theoretical book that can only help legitimize academic criticism of popular fiction” – Times Literary Supplement 24 August 2001 p. 29; “provocative and stimulating” – Textual Practice 16 (2002) p. 198; “well... more
(“the kind of well-informed theoretical book that can only help legitimize academic criticism of popular fiction” – Times Literary Supplement 24 August 2001 p. 29; “provocative and stimulating” – Textual Practice 16 (2002) p. 198; “well documented and argued in a persuasive, accessible way” The Lecturer June 2002 p. 18; “a timely and fascinating discussion of the thriller and the attendant theoretical issues to do with the concept of genre, reading and history” Media, Culture and Society 24 (2002) p. 141; “a well researched and written contribution to the field of genre. The author successfully combines textual analysis with a commentary on genre that is always interesting and often original. Although the mix of television, literature and film seems, on the surface, a heavy one, it has the ultimate effect of returning the reader continuously to the issue of genre that connects them all. In addition, the author provides extensive lists of further reading and viewing material for each chapter that should satisfy anyone wishing to research either the thriller or the issue of genre in greater depth” Intensities 1 (2001); “His readings are apt and accurate, and his agenda is, to my way of thinking, admirable" Studies in the Novel 35 (1) p. 116 (2003)).
“Crushing rival textbooks under its wheels, this wonderfully comprehensive and useful volume brings together an impressive array of writers on all the key subjects . . . Albertazzi and Cobley’s The Media looks set to be the must-buy text... more
“Crushing rival textbooks under its wheels, this wonderfully comprehensive and useful volume brings together an impressive array of writers on all the key subjects . . . Albertazzi and Cobley’s The Media looks set to be the must-buy text for media students to install next to their laptops.”
David Gauntlett, Professor of Media, University of Westminster
“Joining up-to-date information with an accessible format, this volume offers a comprehensive overview of the current state of the media in their social and cultural contexts.”
Professor Klaus Bruhn Jensen, Department of Media, Cognition, and Communication, University of Copenhagen
David Gauntlett, Professor of Media, University of Westminster
“Joining up-to-date information with an accessible format, this volume offers a comprehensive overview of the current state of the media in their social and cultural contexts.”
Professor Klaus Bruhn Jensen, Department of Media, Cognition, and Communication, University of Copenhagen
(“I imagine that if you were studying semiotics this book would be a godsend . . . Recommended” The Lecturer)
(“Paul Cobley is not only a leading figure in semiotics and communication theory, but also a strong promoter of interdisciplinarity in all domains of human scholarly endeavor . . . Semiotics and linguistics are vibrant, ever-changing... more
(“Paul Cobley is not only a leading figure in semiotics and communication theory, but also a strong promoter of interdisciplinarity in all domains of human scholarly endeavor . . . Semiotics and linguistics are vibrant, ever-changing sciences. But they are difficult ones to understand directly. This Companion will certainly help the reader learn much more about them in a concrete and highly intelligible fashion” Semiotica 141 (1/4) (2002): 351-376; “Paul Cobley, who provides the clear and informative introduction, previously edited Routledge’s Communication Theory Reader (for our review of this, see EJC, 12(3), 1997). He has put together a similarly interesting collection here, and students are likely to find it as useful as the earlier volume” European Journal of Communication 17 (1): 144 (2002)).
An introduction to this special issue, Deely in Review, published in Chinese Semiotic Studies to mark the extraordinary research output in book form by John Deely.
Research Interests:
This review argues that The Human Use of Signs (Deely 1994) is both pivotal and exceptional in the oeuvre of John Deely. It argues that the volume is exceptional because of its unusual explicatory structure and that it is pivotal because... more
This review argues that The Human Use of Signs (Deely 1994) is both pivotal and exceptional in the oeuvre of John Deely. It argues that the volume is exceptional because of its unusual explicatory structure and that it is pivotal because of its extended focus on issues arising from the distinction of 'sign', 'object' and 'thing'. Among these issues are the idea of the postmodern, objectivity, relation and the semiotic animal.
Research Interests:
The title of this article might seem alarming to those familiar with Bentham’s idea of a ‘Panopticon’ and Foucault’s subsequent analysis and emblematisation of Bentham’s nascent plan for a disciplinary regime. However, the title is... more
The title of this article might seem alarming to those familiar with Bentham’s idea of a ‘Panopticon’ and Foucault’s subsequent analysis and emblematisation of Bentham’s nascent plan for a disciplinary regime. However, the title is intended to evoke not just the post-Foucaultian meditation on power, discourse and surveillance, but two further areas worthy of investigation in an epoch of ‘visual culture’. First the role of vision in the failure to apprehend (aspects of) semiosis; and the ‘vision’ of the late Thomas A. Sebeok, both in the sense of the ‘visionary’ nature of his programme for semiotics and his implication of vision in attempts at understanding the full panoply of communication.
Research Interests:
That which is willed happens but rarely; in the majority of instances the numerous desired ends cross and conflict with one another, or these ends themselves are from the outset incapable of realisation, or the means of attaining them are... more
That which is willed happens but rarely; in the majority of instances the numerous desired ends cross and conflict with one another, or these ends themselves are from the outset incapable of realisation, or the means of attaining them are insufficient thus the conflicts of innumerable individual wills and individual actions in the domain of history produce a state of affairs entirely analogous to that prevailing in the realm of unconscious nature. Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of German Classical Philosophy 'Part 4: Marx' (1886)
Research Interests:
In the wake of both 9/11 and the financial crisis of 2008, the humanities have been offered as constituents of higher education which, if more prominent and more strenuously promoted, might have prevented both events. At the same time,... more
In the wake of both 9/11 and the financial crisis of 2008, the humanities have been offered as constituents of higher education which, if more prominent and more strenuously promoted, might have prevented both events. At the same time, the humanities have undergone an assault from governments in the West, with massively reduced or wholly cut funding as part of an attempt to promote science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) in universities. The response from parts of the humanities to these government initiatives has been strident, insisting that a thriving humanities or liberal arts curriculum is crucial to democracy, ethics and citizenship, and that the humanities should be an essential ingredient of science and business education. Contemporary semiotics' deployment of the concept of Umwelt demonstrates that the contribution the humanities might make to theory, practice and social life remains indispensable. Yet this contribution is of a rather different character to that portrayed in the traditional defence of 'humanistic' study. Indeed, the example of semiotics reveals that the humanities themselves are regularly misconceived. A personal story illustrates one of the main points in what follows. When I was about 10 years old, I was standing outside the surgery of the local general practitioner, looking at the plaque near the front door. I turned to my dad, asking why doctors need to have so many qualifications, why they have to leave school with a range of exams passed rather than simply focusing on the practice of medicine as their one and only subject. My dad, described on my birth certificate as a " wheel turner " for the Ford Motor Company, someone who had left school at 14 and was placed as one of the most lowly functionaries of late capitalism, was able to reply with a degree of insight which, unfortunately, seems to be beyond that of many senior managers in universities, education policymakers and powerbrokers. His reply to my questions was that it is necessary for doctors to demonstrate that their minds are active in other subject areas than just medicine so that their specialism is not merely a matter of niched competence, that it is informed from without and also because they need to be able to carry out the great many diverse tasks involved in their job.
Research Interests:
Ens et verum convertuntur, “communication and being are co- extensive”. To be for nature is to be intelligible for the animal whose being is to understand (Deely 2003: 39) La questione dell’io é inevitabilmente connessa con quella... more
Ens et verum convertuntur, “communication and being are co-
extensive”. To be for nature is to be intelligible for the animal
whose being is to understand (Deely 2003: 39)
La questione dell’io é inevitabilmente connessa con quella
dell’altro (Ponzio 2001: 137)
extensive”. To be for nature is to be intelligible for the animal
whose being is to understand (Deely 2003: 39)
La questione dell’io é inevitabilmente connessa con quella
dell’altro (Ponzio 2001: 137)
Research Interests:
Roland Barthes is one of the most well-known semioticians outside academic circles. That knowledge is sometimes based on misconceptions about his theory of signs, extrapolated from Saussure. This article will offer an outline of Roland... more
Roland Barthes is one of the most well-known semioticians outside academic circles. That knowledge is sometimes based on misconceptions about his theory of signs, extrapolated from Saussure. This article will offer an outline of Roland Barthes' sign theory, demonstrating the ways that it is derived and adapted from Saussure and how Saussure is refracted through Barthes' readings of other linguists. It will look in particular at Barthes' innovations in sign theory: denotation, connotation and metalanguage, as well as his extension of linguistic thinking to analyse nonverbal modes. It will also discuss Barthes' notion of 'myth' and its influence as a concept. The article will consider a number of instances from media and cultural studies where Barthes' interpretations have not only given subsequent uses of sign theory license to speculate beyond Saussure's original linguistic bearing but have also unwittingly contributed to the stagnation of semiotic analysis.
Research Interests:
This paper addresses the concept of semiotic scaffolding by considering it in light of questions arising from the contemporary challenge to the humanities. This challenge comes from a mixture of scientistic demands, opportunism on the... more
This paper addresses the concept of semiotic scaffolding by considering it in light of questions arising from the contemporary challenge to the humanities. This challenge comes from a mixture of scientistic demands, opportunism on the part of Western governments in thrall to neo-liberalism, along with crass economic utilitarianism. In this paper we attempt to outline what a theory of semiotic scaffolding may offer to an understanding of the humanities' contemporary role, as well as what the humanities might offer to the elucidation of semiotic scaffolding. We argue that traditional humanist positions adopted in defence of the humanities fail to articulate the enhancement of humanity that semiotic scaffolding represents. At the same time, we note that the concept of scaffolding is sometimes in danger of taking on a functionalist perspective which understanding the humanities modus operandi is likely to dispel. Putting forward these arguments, we draw on the work of Peirce, Cassirer and Sebeok in elucidating the structural and 'future-orientated' benefits of the scaffolding process as it suffuses the humanities. The challenge to the humanities in the contemporary conjuncture is twofold. On one side, the humanities are charged with the task of achieving – and proving that they have achieved – immediate economic use-value. On the other side, the three hundred year-long rise of the natural sciences, and particularly their relation to technological development, have effectively thrown down the gauntlet to the humanities and challenged them to prove their worth. In what follows, we will argue that some of the responses to these challenges to the humanities uncritically fall back on traditional humanist positions derived from the very traditions of thought that are ultimately challenging the legitimacy of the humanities in the present. We suggest that an alternative perspective on the humanities – one that is critical of crass utilitarianism but is nonetheless unwilling to dismiss use-value – is
Research Interests:
The concept of code has a long and varied history across the sciences, the social sciences and the humanities. In the interdisciplinary field of biosemiotics it has been foundational through the idea of code duality (Hoffmeyer and Emmeche... more
The concept of code has a long and varied history across the sciences, the social sciences and the humanities. In the interdisciplinary field of biosemiotics it has been foundational through the idea of code duality (Hoffmeyer and Emmeche 1991); yet it has not been free from controversy and questions of definition (see, for example, Barbieri 2010). One reason why code has been so central to modern semiotics is not simply a matter of the linguistic heritage of semiology and the work of Jakobson who straddled both semiology and semiotics. Rather, it has been the programmatic reconceptualization of code which is woven through the work of modern semiotics' founder, the father of both biosemiotics and zoosemiotics, Thomas A. Sebeok. A biologist manqué, a communication theorist influenced by cybernetics and a semiotician deriving from the 'major tradition' of Peirce, arguably Sebeok's most systematic considerations of code were offered in his essays on zoosemiotics, largely from his 1963 coining of the term onwards. This article principally revisits the 1972 collection of Sebeok's zoosemiotic essays and suggests that his particular observations in respect of analogue and digital codes and their relation to evolution in the world of animals harbours an opportunity to rethink and potentially resolve, through an ethological lens, current controversies regarding the status of code.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This paper will focus on the political implications for the language sciences of Sebeok’s move from linguistics to a global semiotic perspective, a move that ultimately resulted in biosemiotics. The paper will seek to make more explicit... more
This paper will focus on the political implications for the language sciences of Sebeok’s move from linguistics to a global semiotic perspective, a move that ultimately resulted in biosemiotics. The paper will seek to make more explicit the political bearing of a biosemiotic perspective in the language sciences and the human sciences in general. In particular, it will discuss the definition of language inherent in Sebeok’s project and the fundamental re-drawing of the grounds of linguistic debate heralded by Sebeok’s embrace of the concept of modelling. Thus far, the political co-ordinates of the biosemiotic project have not really been made explicit. This paper will therefore seek to outline
1. how biosemiotics enables us to reconfigure our understanding of the role of language in culture;
2. how exaptation is central to the evolution of language and communication, rather than adaptation;
3. how communication is the key issue in biosphere, rather than language, not just because communication includes language but because the language sciences often refer to language as if it were mere “chatter”, “tropes” and “figures of speech”;
4. how biosemiotics, despite its seeming “neutrality” arising from its transdisciplinarity, is thoroughly political;
5. how the failure to see the implications of the move from linguistics to semiotics arises from the fact that biosemiotics is devoid of old style politics, which is based on representation (devoid of experience) and “construction of [everything] in discourse” (which is grounded in linguistics, not communication study).
In contrast to the post-“linguistic turn” idea that the world is “constructed in discourse”, we will argue that biosemiotics entails a reconfiguration of the polis and, in particular, offers the chance to completely reconceptualise ideology.
1. how biosemiotics enables us to reconfigure our understanding of the role of language in culture;
2. how exaptation is central to the evolution of language and communication, rather than adaptation;
3. how communication is the key issue in biosphere, rather than language, not just because communication includes language but because the language sciences often refer to language as if it were mere “chatter”, “tropes” and “figures of speech”;
4. how biosemiotics, despite its seeming “neutrality” arising from its transdisciplinarity, is thoroughly political;
5. how the failure to see the implications of the move from linguistics to semiotics arises from the fact that biosemiotics is devoid of old style politics, which is based on representation (devoid of experience) and “construction of [everything] in discourse” (which is grounded in linguistics, not communication study).
In contrast to the post-“linguistic turn” idea that the world is “constructed in discourse”, we will argue that biosemiotics entails a reconfiguration of the polis and, in particular, offers the chance to completely reconceptualise ideology.
Research Interests:
There can be little doubt that human consciousness is now suffused with narrative. In the West, narrative is the focus of a number of lucrative industries and narratives proliferate as never before. The importance of popular genres in... more
There can be little doubt that human consciousness is now suffused with narrative. In the West, narrative is the focus of a number of lucrative industries and narratives proliferate as never before. The importance of popular genres in current narrative is an index of the demise of authorship in the face of new media and has necessitated the renewal of the term ‘genre’ in narrative analysis over the last hundred years or so. However, this article attempts to make clear that the concept of genre and the notion of a textual formula in narrative are not the same thing. Genre, in contrast to formula, is concerned precisely with the issue of how audiences receive narrative conventions; however, much genre theory has treated genre as a purely textual entity. The current article argues that genre should properly be considered as an ‘idea’ or an ‘expectation’ harboured by readers and identifies in textual-based genre theory of the last two thousand years the perpetuation of ahistoricality and canonisation.
Research Interests:
Tom Sebeok lives in recent memory partly because of his phenomenal networking, administration, editing and promotion of individuals in semiotics as well as the disciplinary field in general. Yet this must not be allowed to obscure a body... more
Tom Sebeok lives in recent memory partly because of his phenomenal networking, administration, editing and promotion of individuals in semiotics as well as the disciplinary field in general. Yet this must not be allowed to obscure a body of published writings that is as original as it is eloquent. The current paper will discuss one of Sebeok’s most penetrating insights arising from his consideration of a fundamental paradox in modern intellectual life, one that traverses the bridge between the ‘hard’ and ‘human’ sciences. This paper will argue that Sebeok’s 1979 review of investigations into animals’ aesthetic behaviour, originally cast as an early chapter of a much larger book, contains the key observation which drives contemporary, 21st century semiotics. Sebeok’s abduction of the riddle posits that “aesthetic sensibility plays the part of a delicate sieve” among animals. In so doing, this paper will argue, it not only clarifies the modelling process as a whole, across verbal and averbal modes, but also provides an agenda for re-thinking tertiary modelling, the humanities and global arts policy.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The following essay considers some of the consequences of Sebeok and Eco’s The Sign of Three (1983) for the broad history of the thriller, for the theory of genre, and in terms of an investigation of the relations between genre and... more
The following essay considers some of the consequences of Sebeok and Eco’s The Sign of Three (1983) for the broad history of the thriller, for the theory of genre, and in terms of an investigation of the relations between genre and subjectivity. It is not a fully worked-out history of the thriller and fictional detection in light of the scholarship concerned with abduction. Rather, it is a mere sketch of how such a history might look. It attempts to cast some light on the process of generic canon-building. It also poses a relation between the growth of ‘social paranoia’ in the history and cultural growth of the thriller and the general phenomenon of ‘anxiety’ which is pivotal to the biosemiotic foundations of what has been called by Sebeok (1979) and others (e.g. Wiley 1994) the ‘semiotic self’.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Abstract. There can be little doubt that human consciousness is now suffused with narrative. In the West, narrative is the focus of a number of lucrative industries and narratives proliferate as never before. The importance of popular... more
Abstract. There can be little doubt that human consciousness is now suffused with narrative. In the West, narrative is the focus of a number of lucrative industries and narratives proliferate as never before. The importance of popular genres in current narrative is an index of the ...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie. This site uses cookies to improve performance. If your browser does not accept cookies, you cannot view this site. Setting Your Browser to Accept Cookies. There are many reasons why a cookie... more
An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie. This site uses cookies to improve performance. If your browser does not accept cookies, you cannot view this site. Setting Your Browser to Accept Cookies. There are many reasons why a cookie could not be set correctly. ...
Research Interests:
Objectivity and Immanence in Genre Theory Paul Cobley The premiss of this essay can be stated very simply. It is this: genre is not a set of textual features that can be enumerated; rather, it is an expectation. While no separate... more
Objectivity and Immanence in Genre Theory Paul Cobley The premiss of this essay can be stated very simply. It is this: genre is not a set of textual features that can be enumerated; rather, it is an expectation. While no separate assertions about genre beyond this one will be made, ...
Research Interests:
In coming to terms with the seemingly paradoxical couplet, cultural systems, the work of Toronto scholars has been paramount. In the twentieth century, Innis, McLuhan, Havelock, and Ong made massive contributions to the apprehension of... more
In coming to terms with the seemingly paradoxical couplet, cultural systems, the work of Toronto scholars has been paramount. In the twentieth century, Innis, McLuhan, Havelock, and Ong made massive contributions to the apprehension of relations between technology and ...
'WHO LOVES YA, BABY?' Kof alt, action and the great society Paul Cobley Between 1973 and 1978, Universal's Kojak was one of the most popular TV police shows ever aired. It was a major ratings hit in the United... more
'WHO LOVES YA, BABY?' Kof alt, action and the great society Paul Cobley Between 1973 and 1978, Universal's Kojak was one of the most popular TV police shows ever aired. It was a major ratings hit in the United States (see Variety, 31 October 1973) and it went on to spark a ...
A brief formulation of John Deely's (1942–2017) contribution to biosemiotics.
Research Interests:
This essay – a collection of contributions from 10 scholars working in the field of biosemiotics and the humanities – considers nature in culture. It frames this by asking the question 'Why does biosemiotics need the humanities?'. Each... more
This essay – a collection of contributions from 10 scholars working in the field of biosemiotics and the humanities – considers nature in culture. It frames this by asking the question 'Why does biosemiotics need the humanities?'. Each author writes from the background of their own disciplinary perspective in order to throw light upon their interdisciplinary engagement with biosemiotics. We start with Donald Favareau, whose originary disciplinary home is ethnomethod-ology and linguistics, and then move on to Paul Cobley's contribution on general semiotics and Kalevi Kull's on biosemiotics. This is followed by Cobley (again) with Frederick Stjernfelt who contribute on biosemiotics and learning, then Gerald Ostdiek from philosophy, and Morten Tønnessen focusing upon ethics in particular. Myrdene Anderson writes from anthropology, while Timo Maran and Louise Westling provide a view from literary study. The essay closes with Wendy Wheeler reflecting on the movement of biosemiotics as a challenge, often via the ecological humanities, to the kind of so-called 'postmodern' thinking that has dominated humanities critical thought in the universities for the past 40 years. Virtually all the matters gestured to in outline above are discussed in much more satisfying detail in the topics which follow.