Published by De Gruyter

Semiotics of Religion

Edited by: Massimo Leone, Fabio Rambelli and Robert Yelle

Overview
Volumes

The series publishes monographs that study religious cultures as systems of signs. Cross-fertilizing the areas of religious studies and language studies, it is meant to attract works that deal with the symbolic patterns of religious cultures. While stressing the theoretical reading of religious phenomena, the series emphasizes placing religious beliefs and expressions in their historical and socio-cultural contexts, as well as establishing well-documented comparisons among different religious traditions.

Interdisciplinary at its core, Semiotics of Religion welcomes contributions from researchers in all subfields of semiotics—including cultural semiotics, cognitive semiotics, structural semiotics, semiotic anthropology, visual semiotics, the semiotics of the arts—and from adjacent disciplines such as linguistics, discourse analysis, performance studies, communications, and rhetoric as well as semiotically-oriented submissions from religious studies, cultural studies, literary studies, gender studies, post-colonial studies, and material culture. The series considers proposals on every religious culture, provided that their methodological focus bears on the understanding of religion as a form of signification and communication.

Richly detailed and well-evidenced monographs on the meaning and expressive patterns that religious communities adopt in particular moments or periods of their history or in specific socio-cultural contexts are particularly welcome. New theoretical models of how religions produce, interpret, transmit, and store signs, texts, and discourse are also sought. The series will also publish surveys that describe the state of the art of the discipline and propose new trends for its development.

Primarily in English, the series will be open to occasional works by reputed scholars who write in other languages. The series will be open to publishing both monographs and collections of essays, including multi-author works.

Book 2022

Acts of Interpretation

Ancient Religious Semiotic Ideologies and Their Modern Echoes

Naomi Janowitz

Volume 66 in the series Religion and Reason

Volume 7 in this series

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Ancient authors debated proper verbal and non-verbal signs as representations of divinity. These understanding of signs were based on ideas drawn from language and thus limited due to a their partial understanding of the multi-functionality of signs. Charles S. Peirce’s semiotics, as adapted by anthropological linguists including Michael Silverstein, better explains the contextual linkages ("performativity") of ancient religious signs such as divine names. Sign meaning is always dependent on processes of interpretation and is always open to reinterpretation. Focusing on these processes permits a more detailed analysis of the ancient evidence. Examples are drawn from ancient Israelite verbal and non-verbal divine representation, the apostle Paul’s linguistic letter/spirit model, Christian debates about the limits of language to best represent the deity, Josephus’ aniconic advertisement of Jewish rites, the multi-layered divine representations in the Dura-Europos synagogue, the diverse "performativity" of Jewish ascent liturgies, and—the single modern example—the role of art at Burning Man. Divine representation is the basis for ritual efficacy even as sign meaning is a constant source of contention.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110768602
ISBN:: 9783110768602
ISBN:: 9783111357898
ISBN:: 9783110768626
ISBN:: 9783110768596
Subject:: Linguistics and Semiotics
Subject:: Semiotics
Subject:: Semiotics, other
Subject:: Theology and Religion
Subject:: Religious Studies
Subject:: Comparative Studies
Subject:: Theory of Religion
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2021

Sign, Method and the Sacred

New Directions in Semiotic Methodologies for the Study of Religion

Jason Cronbach Van Boom, Thomas-Andreas Põder

Volume 64 in the series Religion and Reason

Volume 5 in this series

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To what extent can semiotics illuminate key problems in religious studies, given the centrality of symbols, language, and other modes of signification in religion and theology?

The volume explores semiotic methodologies for the study of religion, with an emphasis on their critical and creative reconfigurations. The contributors come from different specialties, such as cognitive science, ethnography, linguistics, communication studies, art studies, religious studies, philosophy of religion, and theology. Part One consists of chapters focusing on theoretical perspectives. Part two focuses on applications in texts and case studies while still considering methodological issues. Many specific traditions and perspectives are taken up, such as C. S. Peirce, A. J. Greimas and the Paris School, Juri Lotman’s semiotics of culture, Bruno Latour and material semiotics, linguistic anthropology, social semiotics, cognitive semiotics, embodied and enactive perspectives on language and mind, semiotics of the image and iconicity, multimodality, intertextuality, and semiotics of colors.

The book provides readers with a succinct overview of how contemporary semiotics can be useful in understanding a broad array of topics in the study of religion.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110694925
ISBN:: 9783110694925
ISBN:: 9783110694727
ISBN:: 9783110694949
Subject:: Theology and Religion
Subject:: Religious Studies
Subject:: Sociology of Religion
Subject:: Theory of Religion
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2020

Mediation and Immediacy

A Key Issue for the Semiotics of Religion

Jenny Ponzo, Robert A. Yelle, Massimo Leone

Volume 62 in the series Religion and Reason

Volume 4 in this series

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Religion, like any other domain of culture, is mediated through symbolic forms and communicative behaviors, which allow the coordination of group conduct in ritual and the representation of the divine or of tradition as an intersubjective reality. While many traditions hold out the promise of immediate access to the divine, or to some transcendent dimension of experience, such promises depend for their realization as well on the possibility of mediation, which is necessarily conducted through channels of communication and exchange, such as prayers or sacrifices. An understanding of such modes of semiosis is therefore necessary even and especially when mediation is denied by a tradition in the name of the 'ineffability" of the deity or of mystical experience.

This volume models and promotes an interdisciplinary dialogue and cross-cultural perspective on these issues by asking prominent semioticians, historians of religion and of art, linguists, sociologists of religion, and philosophers of law to reflect from a semiotic perspective on the topic of mediation and immediacy in religious traditions.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110690347
ISBN:: 9783110690347
ISBN:: 9783110690323
ISBN:: 9783110690354
Subject:: Linguistics and Semiotics
Subject:: Semiotics
Subject:: Cultural Semiotics
Subject:: Theology and Religion
Subject:: Religious Studies
Subject:: Theory of Religion
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2020

Augustine's Theory of Signs, Signification, and Lying

Remo Gramigna

Volume 60 in the series Religion and Reason

Volume 3 in this series

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The aim of this study is to present, as far as possible, a general description of the theory of the sign and signification in Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD), with a view to its evaluation and implications for the study of semiotics. Accurate studies for subject, discipline, and significance have not yet given an organic and systematic vision of Augustine’s theory of the sign. The underlying aspiration is that such an endeavour will prove to be beneficial to the scholars of Augustine’s thought as well as to those with a keen interest in the history of semiotics.

The study uses Augustine’s own accounts to investigate and interpret the philosophical problem of the sign. The focus lies on the first decade of Augustine’s literary production. The De dialectica, is taken as the terminus ad quo of the study, and the De doctrina christiana is the terminus ad quem. The selected texts show an explicit engagement with poignant discussion on the nature and structure of the sign, the variety of signs and their uses. Although Augustine’s intention never was to establish a theory of meaning as an independent field of study, he largely employed a theory of signs. Thus, Augustine’s approach to signs is intrinsically meaningful.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110596625
ISBN:: 9783110596625
ISBN:: 9783110595772
ISBN:: 9783110593709
Subject:: Linguistics and Semiotics
Subject:: Semiotics
Subject:: Semiotics, other
Subject:: Theology and Religion
Subject:: Patristics
Subject:: Patristic Authors
Subject:: Systematic Theology and Philosophy of Religion
Subject:: Philosophy of Religion
Subject:: Religious Studies
Subject:: Theory of Religion
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2019

Religious Narratives in Italian Literature after the Second Vatican Council

A Semiotic Analysis

Jenny Ponzo

Volume 59 in the series Religion and Reason

Volume 2 in this series

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This book presents a semiotic study of the re-elaboration of Christian narratives and values in a corpus of Italian novels published after the Second Vatican Council (1960s). It tackles the complex set of ideas expressed by Italian writers about the biblical narration of human origins and traditional religious language and ritual, the perceived clash between the immanent and transcendent nature and role of the Church, and the problematic notion of sanctity emerging from contemporary narrative.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110497830
ISBN:: 9783110497830
ISBN:: 9783110496024
ISBN:: 9783110499841
Subject:: Literary Studies
Subject:: Romance Literature
Subject:: Italian Literature
Subject:: 20th Century
Subject:: Theology and Religion
Subject:: Religious Studies
Subject:: Religion in Europe
Publisher:: De Gruyter