The American Journal of Semiotics

Volume 23, Issue 1/4, 2007

Semiotics in the Chinese Umwelt

Can the Uncanny Be Represented?

If the uncanny is something one cannot quite come to terms with in the first place, can the uncanny really be represented? There is clearly in the act itself something quite against the grain of referentiality. What in other words is the point of saying that which cannot very well be said in explicit terms? And how do we account for an increase in modern times of efforts to perform what at first look seems infeasible? It also remains to be seen how the Chinese uncanny is represented with the help of a seemingly inane rhetorical tour de force in which the uncanny is confirmed as being historically true despite everything else in the story that points in the opposite direction.