Theoretical gesture, political gesture. Semiotics versus Cultural Studies
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.1980-4016.esse.2021.188607Keywords:
Semiotics, Culture, Cultural studies, Post-memory of the perpetrators, Political violenceAbstract
Principle of pertinence, plane of immanence, objectifying distance: these are rules of semiotics perfectly integrated into the researcher’s methodology. These rules are presented as evidence in the face of relatively “neutral” objects from an ethical and political point of view. However, within the cultural phenomena that semiotics can consider as a “corpus”, there are some that challenge us directly, and in such a radical way that our first impulse would be to develop a militant discourse, far (far, really?) from the possibilities that this discipline offers us. Mass murders, crimes against humanity: how to refer to such “objects”, so axiologically marked, without breaking with the rules of analysis and at the same time without producing a “stiff”, cold, “dehumanized” discourse? To what extent is it possible in these cases to resort to the “theoretical gesture” characteristic of semiotics? Cultural Studies have tackled the problem head-on: motivated by a “political gesture”, the researcher builds his legitimacy around his direct involvement in the issues he is working on. In this context, the semiotician can only question the basis of his position, asking himself what he can contribute from his discipline, while respecting (or not) the principles that define it. This is the aim of this contribution, which presents a comparison between the semiotic perspective and the Cultural Studies’ approach, taking up previous reflections developed in collaboration with Raphaël Horrein. On this basis, I intend to address the challenges facing our discipline, as well as its possible contributions, in the face of “extreme” cultural phenomena linked to political violence.
Downloads
References
ANDERS, Günther. Nous, fils d’Eichmann: lettre ouverte à Klaus Eichmann. Paris, França: Payot et Rivages, 2003 [1964].
BAETENS, Jan. Mon Grand Tour en sémiotique. La sémiotique vue depuis les cultural studies. Signata. Annales des sémiotiques / Annals of Semiotics, 2, “La sémiotique, entre autres”, pp. 155-166, 2011. DOI : 10.4000/signata.642
BARTALINI, Carolina y ESTAY STANGE, Verónica (eds.), Escritos desobedientes. Historias de hijas, hijos y familiares de genocidas por la memoria, la verdad y la justicia. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Marea, 2018.
BEYAERT-Geslin, Anne. Sémiotique des objets. La matière du temps. Liège, Bélgica: Presses Universitaires de Liège, 2015.
CERVULLE, Maxime et QUEMENER, Nelly. Cultural Studies: Théories et méthodes. 2a ed., Paris, França: Armand Colin, 2018.
CHALARD-FILLAUDEAU, Anne. Les études culturelles. Saint-Denis, França: PUV, 2015.
COQUET, Jean-Claude. Phusis et logos. Une phénoménologie du langage. Saint-Denis, França: PUV, 2007.
DARRAS, Bernard. Études culturelles & Cultural Studies. Paris, França: L’Harmattan, 2006.
ESTAY STANGE, Verónica. La musique hors d’elle-même. Le paradigme musical et l’art contemporain. Paris, França: Classiques Garnier, 2018.
FONTANILLE, Jacques. Textes, objets, situations et formes de vie. Les niveaux de pertinence du plan de l’expression dans une sémiotique des cultures. In: J. Alonso, D. Bertrand, M. Costantini y S. Dambrine (eds.), La Transversalité du sens. Parcours sémiotiques (p. 213-240). Saint-Denis, França: PUV, 2007.
FONTANILLE, Jacques. Pratiques sémiotiques. Paris, França: PUF, 2015.
GREIMAS, Algirdas Julien. La soupe au pistou: ou la construction d’un objet de valeur. Documents de recherche (Groupe de recherches sémio-linguistiques), 5, 1979.
GREIMAS, Algirdas Julien. Entretien réalisé par Jacques Fontanille, Langue française: Sémiotique et enseignement du français, 61, 1984, p. 121-128.
GREIMAS, Algirdas Julien. De l’imperfection. Périgueux, França: Fanlac, 1987.
HALL, Stuart. Identités et cultures. Politiques des Cultural Studies. Paris, França: Éditions Amsterdam, p. 49-69, 2017 [2008].
HUSSERL, Edmund. Ideen zu Einer Reinen Phänomenologie und Phänomenologischen Philosophie. Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976 [1913].
HUSSERL, Edmund. Ideias para uma fenomenologia pura e para uma filosofia fenomenológica. Trad. Márcio Suzuki. Aparecida/SP: Ideias e Letras, 2006 [1913].
RADSTONE, Susannah. Memory studies: For and against. Memory Studies, 1(1), pp. 31-39, 2008. DOI: 10.1177/1750698007083886
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2021 Verónica Estay Stange
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
The authors grant the journal all copyrights relating to the work published. The concepts expressed in signed articles are absolute and exclusive responsibility of their authors.