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Toronto Semiotic Circle Lecture Series

TSC Genosko Lecture: Critical Semiotics - Theory from Information to Affect

Professor Gary Genosko

University of Ontario Institute of Technology

In a world dominated by information, how do things that seem to have diminished meaning or even no meaning still have so much power to affect us, or to carry on our ability to affect the world? This lecture provides long overdue answers to questions at the junction of information, meaning and 'affect'. The affective turn in cultural studies has received much attention: a focus on the pre-individual bodily forces, linked to automatic responses, which augment or diminish the body's capacity to act or engage with others.

Linguistics and semiotics have been accused of being adrift from the affective turn and not accounting for these visceral forces beneath or generally other from conscious knowing. The lecture outlines a detailed refutation, with analyses of specific contributions to critical semiotic approaches to meaning and signification. People want to understand how other people are moved and to understand embodied social actions, feelings and passions at the same time as understanding how this takes place. Semiotics must make the affective turn.

This lecture was hosted in partnership with the Department of Philosophy at Ryerson University and organized by the Meaning Lab in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures.

A Bit About Me

Date & Time

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Wed, 18 January 2017

5:00 PM – 6:30 PM EST

 

Ryerson University

341 Yonge St, POD469

Toronto, ON M5B 2K3

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