Semiotics is the study of sign processes (semiosis), which are any activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, where a sign is defined as anything that communicates a meaning that is not the sign itself to the sign's interpreter. The meaning can be intentional such as a word uttered with a specific meaning, or unintentional, such as a symptom being a sign of a particular medical condition. Signs can communicate through any of the senses, visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, or gustatory.
The University of Tartu is a university in the city of Tartu in Estonia. It is the national university of Estonia, and the only classical university in the country, and also the biggest and most prestigious university in Estonia. It was founded under the name of Academia Gustaviana in 1632 by Baron Johan Skytte, the Governor- General (1629–1634) of Swedish Livonia, Ingria and Karelia, with the required ratification provided by his long-time friend and former student – from age 7 –, King Gustavus Adolphus, shortly before the king's death on 6 November in the Battle of Lützen (1632), during the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648).
Yuri Mikhailovich Lotman was a prominent literary scholar, semiotician, and cultural historian, who worked at the University of Tartu. He was elected a member of the British Academy (1977), Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters (1987), Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (1989) and Estonian Academy of Sciences (1990). He was a founder of the Tartu–Moscow Semiotic School. The number of his printed works exceeds 800 titles. His archive which includes his correspondence with a number of Russian and Western intellectuals, is immense.
Sign Systems Studies is a peer-reviewed academic journal on semiotics edited at the Department of Semiotics of the University of Tartu and published by the University of Tartu Press. It is the oldest periodical in the field. It was initially published in Russian and since 1998 in English with Russian and Estonian language abstracts. The journal was established by Juri Lotman as Trudy po Znakovym Sistemam in 1964. Since 1998 it has been edited by Kalevi Kull, Mihhail Lotman, and Peeter Torop. The journal is available online from the Philosophy Documentation Center, indexed by WoS and Scopus, and starting 2012 also on an open access platform.
Kalevi Kull is a biosemiotics professor at the University of Tartu, Estonia.
Monument of Lihula is the colloquial name of a monument commemorating the Estonians who fought for Estonia against the Soviet Union in World War II, located in a privately owned museum in Lagedi, Estonia. The monument has been controversial due to, in part, its dedication to those who served in the German Wehrmacht and particularly in the Waffen-SS.
John Deely was an American philosopher and semiotician. He was a professor of philosophy at Saint Vincent College and Seminary in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. Prior to this, he held the Rudman Chair of Graduate Philosophy at the Center for Thomistic Studies, located at the University of St. Thomas (Houston).
Mihhail Lotman is an Estonian literature researcher and politician, son of Yuri Lotman and Zara Mints.
Jüri Talvet is an Estonian poet and academic. He is the author of various literary works including poetry, criticism, and essays.
The Tartu–Moscow Semiotic School is a scientific school of thought in the field of semiotics that was formed in 1964 and led by Juri Lotman. Among the other members of this school were Boris Uspensky, Vyacheslav Ivanov, Vladimir Toporov, Mikhail Gasparov, Alexander Piatigorsky, Isaak I. Revzin, and others. As a result of their collective work, they established a theoretical framework around the semiotics of culture.
The Barton Cylinder is a Sumerian creation myth, written on a clay cylinder in the mid to late 3rd millennium BCE, which is now in the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Joan Goodnick Westenholz suggests it dates to around 2400 BC.
Pallas University of Applied Sciences is a university of applied sciences that provides art education in Tartu, Estonia. It was founded on 1 August 2000. The university is situated in Karlova. The rector is Vallo Nuust.
Bruno Osimo is an Italian fiction writer and translation studies scholar.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to semiotics:
Semiotics of culture is a research field within semiotics that attempts to define culture from semiotic perspective and as a type of human symbolic activity, creation of signs and a way of giving meaning to everything around. Therefore, here culture is understood as a system of symbols or meaningful signs. Because the main sign system is the linguistic system, the field is usually referred to as semiotics of culture and language. Under this field of study symbols are analyzed and categorized in certain class within the hierarchal system. With postmodernity, metanarratives are no longer as pervasive and thus categorizing these symbols in this postmodern age is more difficult and rather critical.
Rein Raud is an Estonian scholar and author.
Jacob Linzbach was an Estonian linguist.
The Copenhagen–Tartu school of biosemiotics is a loose network of scholars working within the discipline of biosemiotics at the University of Tartu and the University of Copenhagen.
Peeter Järvelaid is an Estonian legal scholar and historian. Järvelaid is a professor in the University of Tallinn. He has developed semiotic and personality-centered research direction, writing hundreds of articles mostly about the European and Estonian legal history and education, published in Estonian, English, German, French, Russian, Latvian, Finnish, Lithuanian and Swedish. Since 2006 his studies have been increasingly concentrated on the international relations in the 20th century, which among others has required intensive archival researches in German and Polish archives. Since 2012 Järvelaid has placed his research emphasis on the German diplomatic missions, with a specific interest in German diplomatic representation in Tallinn.
Maarja Jakobson is an Estonian television, stage and film actress whose career began in the late 1990s.
