The Semiotics Workshop

2013 Spring Theme & Schedule

afelice — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 19:48:21 +0000

The Semiotics Workshop is pleased to announce its 2013 Spring Quarter Theme and Schedule:

“Semiotic spatialities”

Despite, or because of, the ways in which semiotic forms constantly travel, there are many attempts to keep them within boundaries of space and place. Papers this quarter will address how semiotic forms are bound, maintained and controlled within particular socio-geographic milieux.

Schedule

April 11 – “Anatomy of a failed raid: gendered harassment on the internet and the metapragmatics of trolling”

Giovanni Ricci

PhD Student, Anthropology

Univ. of Chicago

Discussant: Michael Castelle

April 25 – “‘The Irish Appelation’: How and why whiskey became ‘Irish’ in the early modern British imaginary”

Megan Edwards

PhD Candidate, Anthropology

Univ. of Chicago

Discussant: Colin Halverson

Joint meeting with IAW, in Haskell 315

May 16 – ”Chronotope and Crisis: Interdiscursivity and the Semiotic Production of Violence”

Gabe Tusinski

PhD Candidate, Anthropology

Univ. of Chicago

Discussant: Giovanni Ricci

Meeting in Haskell Mezzanine Room 131

May 23 – “Warring standards: Contesting the enregisterment of Cosmopolitan Mandarin”

Qing Zhang

Assistant Professor, Anthropology

Univ. of Arizona

Discussant: Angelica Felice

June 6 – TBA

Erik Skjon

PhD Candidate

Univ. of Chicago

Discussant: Elizabeth Brummel

2013 Winter Quarter Theme & Schedule

afelice — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 00:31:48 +0000

The Semiotics Workshop is pleased to announce our Winter Quarter theme:

“Semiotic Flows”

Semiotic forms are constantly crossing boundaries – national, linguistic, disciplinary, institutional – and much invisible labor is undertaken both to maintain and to convert them, and to de- and recontextualize them. Papers this quarter will address the ways in which these forms circulate and the issues that result from the transductions they undergo.

Schedule:

January 10: “‘Communication’ as a Factor of Production: Language, Morality, and the ‘New Work Order’ in St. Petersburg”

Susanne Cohen

Lecturer, Anthropology

University of Chicago

Discussant: Tanya Shpigel

January 24: “Ritual Capital: Exchange Value and Market Discourse in a Diamond Trading Room”

Filipe Calvão

Phd Candidate, Anthropology

University of Chicago

Discussant: Tracey Rosen

February 7: “’We Rule You’: The Visual Epistemology of Capitalism as a Pyramid”

Eric Triantafillou

PhD Student, Anthropology

University of Chicago

Discussant: Xueting Liu

February 21: “Lovin’ on the Women of Boystown: The Triadic Relationship between Sex Workers, Missionaries, and God”

Sarah Luna

PhD Candidate, Anthropology

University of Chicago

Discussant: Molly Cunningham

March 7: “Fistbumps and Phonies: Insincerity, deception and lies in urban Kenya”

Elizabeth Brummel

Phd Candidate, Anthropology

University of Chicago

Discussant: Ali Feser

March 21: “Reported Speech as an Authentication Tactic in Computer-Mediated Communication”

Graham M. Jones

Associate Professor, Anthropology

MIT

Discussant: Elise Kramer

Semiotics & African Studies Workshop Meeting

afelice — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 18:12:49 +0000

The Semiotics Workshop is pleased to announce an additional meeting this quarter in conjunction with the African Studies Workshop:

Nov. 20th: “Tracking Time-Travelling Translators or Transducing ‘Semiotecs?’ between Grahamstown and Beijing: Colonial Re-Iterations, Translational Labor and the Making of Aspirational Histories”

Jay Schutte

Phd Student, Anthropology

University of Chicago

Discussant: Zebulon Dingley

*Please note that this meeting will be held on Tuesday, Nov. 20th in Wilder House at 5pm.

2012 Autumn Quarter Theme & Schedule

afelice — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 15:26:53 +0000

The Semiotics Workshop is pleased to announce our Autumn Quarter theme:

“Semiotic Creativity/Expertise”

(Ethno)metapragmatics allow us to enshrine (meta)semiotic forms in institutions and hierarchies. The papers presented this quarter will address the expertise created by such canonicalization and the modalities of creativity that emerge as a result of the tensions inherent to such restriction.

Schedule:

October 11: “Speaking for the Voiceless: Metaphors of Power and Agency in American Political Discourse”

Elise Kramer

PhD Candidate, Anthropology

University of Chicago

Discussant: Averill Leslie

October 25: “Representations of Meaning by ‘Amr b. Bahr al-Jahiz”

David Larsen

Master Teacher, Liberal Studies

New York University

Discussant: Yaqub Hilal

November 8: “‘We are not Labor’: The Hazards of Training in the Indian Construction Sector”

Adam Sargent

PhD Candidate, Anthropology

University of Chicago

Discussant: Julia Kowalski

November 29: “The transitivity and intransitivity of ‘la pensée’ in a radical French philosophy department”

Eli Thorkelson

PhD Candidate, Anthropology

University of Chicago

Discussant: Jan Schutte

June 7th: Elise Kramer

Britta Ingebretson — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 20:39:25 +0000

Elise Kramer
PhD Candidate, Anthropology
University of Chicago

“Voicing Selves, Voicing Others: Self-Reflexivity and Interdiscursivity in American Political Activists’ Discourse.”

Discussant: Molly Cunningham

Thursday, June 7th, 2012
4:45pm – 6:15pm
Haskell Hall 101

(note slight time shift)

The paper is available by email request from the graduate student coordinators, Britta Ingebretson (ingebretson@uchicago.edu) and Chris Bloechl (cbloechl@uchicago.edu).

Refreshments will be served. Please contact the graduate student coordinators, Christopher Bloechl (cbloechl@uchicago.edu) or Britta Ingebretson (ingebretson@uchicago.edu), if you believe you may need special assistance in attending the workshop or you have other questions or concerns.

Qing Zhang – May 24 CANCELLED

Britta Ingebretson — Thu, 24 May 2012 05:08:05 +0000

Dear Semiotics Workshop Participants,

Unfortunately, we must cancel the workshop session scheduled for this Thursday,
May 24. We apologize for any inconvenience.

We will resume on June 7 for the final meeting of the quarter.

Regards,

Britta

April 26th: Abigail Rosenthal

Britta Ingebretson — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 04:01:20 +0000

Abigail Rosenthal
PhD Candidate, Anthropology
University of Chicago

““From special schools to special education: How deinstitutionalization turned deafness from deviance to disability.”

Discussant: Shirley Yeung

Thursday, April 26th, 2012
4:30pm – 6:00pm
Haskell Hall 101

The paper is available by email request from the graduate student coordinators, Britta Ingebretson (ingebretson@uchicago.edu) and Chris Bloechl (cbloechl@uchicago.edu).

April 12th: Falina Enriquez

Britta Ingebretson — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 02:05:21 +0000

Falina Enriquez
PhD Candidate, Anthropology
University of Chicago

“Performing Cultura, Rehearsing Democracy: How government sponsorship impacts musicians in Recife, Brazil.”

Discussant: Erik Levin

Thursday, April 12th, 2012
4:30pm – 6:00pm
Haskell Hall 101

The paper is available by email request from the graduate student coordinators, Britta Ingebretson (ingebretson@uchicago.edu) and Chris Bloechl (cbloechl@uchicago.edu).

2012 Spring Quarter Theme & Schedule

Britta Ingebretson — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 02:02:42 +0000

The Semiotics: Culture in Context Workshop is happy to announce our Spring Quarter theme and schedule:

The Poetics and Politics of Semiosis

Last quarter, the Semiotics Workshop took up the theme of “The Social Efficaciousness of Semiosis.” Papers examined the intended and unintended entailments brought about through the inherently generative and creative powers of signification. This quarter, we want to examine issues of semiotic efficaciousness on a macro-scale, asking, how do politics interact with and co-constitute semiotic processes? To draw on Goffman and Bakhtin, what types of social roles do speakers animate or ‘voice’, and what political projects are they implicated in? How can a semiotic analysis of the poetics of speech reveal larger discourses, which figurate and are figurated by the micro-context of discursive interaction? This quarter, we will consider a series of papers,
each of which engages in various different ways with how semiotic processes shape not only the here-and-now but also operates at various scales and temporalities. Some of these papers deal explicitly with “political speech” and its consequences, while others draw out the logics and ideologies implicit within acts of semiosis.

Schedule:
March 29, 2012: “God(s) in Translation: Missionary Discourses and the 19th-century ‘Term Question’ in China”
Xiao-bo Yuan
PhD student, Anthropology
University of Chicago

April 12: “Performing Cultura, Rehearsing Democracy: How government sponsorship impacts musicians in Recife, Brazil.”
Falina Enriquez
PhD Candidate, Anthropology
University of Chicago

April 26: “From special schools to special education: How deinstitutionalization turned deafness from deviance to disability.”
Abigail Rosenthal
PhD Candidate, Anthropology
University of Chicago

May 24: TBA
Qing Zhang
Assistant Professor, Dept. of Anthropology
University of Arizona

June 7: TBA
Elise Kramer
PhD Candidate, Anthropology
University of Chicago

March 1st: Elina Hartikainen

Britta Ingebretson — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 17:34:01 +0000

Elina Hartikainen
PhD Candidate, Anthropology
University of Chicago

“Democracy through Hierarchy: Dual Addressivity at Candomblé Conferences and
an Emergent Candomblé Politics”

Discussant: Colin Halverson

Thursday, March 1st, 2012
4:30pm – 6:00pm
Haskell Hall 101

The paper is available by email request from the graduate student coordinators, Britta Ingebretson (ingebretson@uchicago.edu) and Chris Bloechl (cbloechl@uchicago.edu).