Cultura International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology

Three lines of semiotic thought were developed by Greek culture: that of Medicine, that of the Arts of discourse (Logic, Dialectic and Rhetoric), and finally,that of Language, strictly speaking. Even though these three branches evolved in quite parallel terms, they only slightly influenced one another, which hindered the existence of a general Semiotics. However, this fact does not play down the reflection on Semiosis carried out by the Greeks.

In the beginning was the triangle, the apostles of semiology say. In arguing for a semiological approach to literature, this paper highlights first that theconsecrated semiotic triangle seen in perspective proves to be a pyramid, with its faces consisting of minimal semiotic triads; it then suggests that the pyramidalsemiotic constructs within a given context project the figure of infinite semiosis; finally, it proposes an illustration of the literary process of signification using thealchemical image of the clepsydra.

In the age of Globalization, cultural identity is a pointed and hotly debated question in academia. Cultural identity involves a core of traditional values and therecognition of several developing layers: the individual, the community and the nation. China has two dominant cultural tendencies: conservatism and protectionism. This has resulted in rejecting Western discourse to preserve a supposedly unchangeable Chinese identity. Comparative models that study cultural and literary exchanges between China and the West were based on dualist perceptions of spatio-temporal orientation. The multi-dimensional model of cross-cultural research espoused in this paper re-examines the relationships between Chinese and Western cultures and their literature. It also examines the misappropriation, transplantation, transfer and transformation of cultural representations and theories across diverse historical periods. As opposed to the dualist model of traditional comparators approaches, where relations are simplified to A influences B. the multi-dimensional model operates complex mapping, between ancient Chinese culture and Western culture, and then back to modern Chinese culture. This paper offers a case study of the complexity of cross-cultural exchanges over time, with the example of Ji Junxiang’s The Orphan of Zhao, its sources, (mis)adaptations and critical interpretations.

A belief commonly held in linguistics and philosophy is that semantics is defined by syntax. In this article, I will demonstrate that this does not hold true for Turkish. A fundamental syntactical rule builds around the successive order of words or speech units in a sentence. The order determines the meaning of the sentence, which in turn is rendered meaningless if the rule is not observed. In a given language, if a sentence retains meaning without this rule being applied, then the rule cannot be said to determine meaning. Turkish, with its mathematical structure, is one such language. In effect, the degree to which semantics is determined by syntax varies considerably from one language to the other. If meaning is constructed through dissimilar means in different languages, then it is not possible to talk about a single theory of meaningfulness valid for all languages. Each language is uniquely determined, and is a reflection of its proper cultural background. A theory of language must take into account this cultural framework. In this paper, I shall deal with a different way of constructing meaning whereby syntax does not determine semantics, and present the linguistic possibilities it gives rise to.

Translation is a fundamental part of cultural dissemination. Based on an empirical qualitative research, the first part of this article presents the effects that thewave of translations after 2005, the first of utmost importance in the Romanian cultural environment, engaged in the local literary field, and in the second part there are brought into discussion some important intercultural barriers in translation and promotion of literature abroad, such as defining literature in a different way, new forms of censorship or problematic semiotic codes of literature of revolt.

Traditionally, comparative literature has focused on the study of influences between texts and it is only recent work that has explored the analogies and affinitiesof historically independent cultures. In this spirit, this paper develops methods for a structured poetic analysis and applies them to a systematic comparison of thepoem “Niǎo Mǐng Jiàn” from the 8th-century Chinese poet Wáng Wéi and the program piece of Paul Celan’s Atemwende: “Du Darfst,” based upon a detailed analysis of their poetics. The analysis and translation reveals how both poems employ words and images as signs without reference, and create dialogical gaps through ambiguity and impersonality. Thus, despite their cultural and historical separation, both poetic texts become “hermetic,” and both poets apply the “hermetic” as a method of inquiry into truth, a truth that cannot be simply pronounced, but needs to be cowitnessed, or heard in silence. It is through this meaningful “silence” that their poetry invites readers and translators all the more perceptively to engage in meaningful conversations. These results entail encouraging perspectives for the question of the limits of translation, especially with regard to east-western studies and for crosscultural comparative literature. Thus, the paper supports Prof. Li Qingben’s and Prof. Guo Jinghua’s claim for a multi-dimensional framework in the study of East-West cultural influences.

This article aims to show that so-called Mail Art (art distributed via the international postal system) is based on five paradoxes. These paradoxes, which correlateto how Mail Art is distributed and exhibited by means of changing technologies, its aesthetics, its democratic ideals, and its transnational character, explain howMail Art has emerged and been constructed as an artistic medium on the stage of world cultures. While the paradoxes of Mail Art are specific for this particular medium, I argue that all media types are more or less marked by inherent paradoxes. The fact that Mail Art includes all kinds of material, sensorial, spatiotemporal, and semiotic modes makes it an unusual art form, but here it is primarily meant to be an example of the ambiguous ways in which media types in general are delimited and defined.

In most societies, greetings are the expression of emotions such as friendliness or rejection, and form the basis of social and moral order. The symbolic dimension of greetings is frequently entwined in the cultural and metaphysical reality of a community. In African societies this ethical and religious dimension carries its own peculiarities. It is interesting to see how much of the content-meaning of greetings depends on cultural traditions. This paper presents an analysis of greetings in the Yoruba culture in Nigeria.

Batik industry, Indonesia’s traditional practice of dying cloth through wax resist methods, is considered an important source of intangible cultural heritage andprotected under UNESCO. The industry is very diverse and many different colors and motives are used. Research in this article focuses on Batik in Yogyakarta,Surakarta, Lasem, Tuban and Garut regions. This paper studies the connotative implications of Batik’s cultural significations that pass on from older to youngergenerations revealing the importance of visuality and touch in constructing meaning within certain cultures.

Despite, or perhaps as a form of resistance to contemporary globalization tendencies, the Central Asia region has chosen a way of life that combines modernconditions with deeply ingrained ancient customs and traditions. The gap between the by-gone glorious nomadic past in the communities of the Great Steppe and the socio-cultural and economic setup of the independent countries in this region, for instance Russia and Kazakhstan, is huge, and without access to modern structures of knowledge dissemination, the cultural heritage of these ancient nomadic communities remains largely unexplored. This paper seeks to present some of the hidden cultural treasures of these peoples. In order to do so, the study focuses on the semiotic implications of ornaments as intercultural signs amidst the nomadic cultures of Eurasia.

I am looking at a bird flying above my head and I barely see it; in the meantime I am talking to a friend of mine about my job. All these things: the bird, my friend, my job, even the ground beneath my feet, are outside of me. Yet, while I am living these objects, they are here, in my head. How can one explain this relationship,where something that is completely different from my being becomes a part of me? If something transcends my own nature, how can it be immanent, within my lived experience? How can I relate to something that is completely other than me? How can it ‘in-exist’ in my mind? Is there an original ‘me’ or am I always the result of my social life? Is the world in which I am living objective, or is it just mine? In this paper I would like to answer all these questions, focusing on the theory of intersubjectivity as it has been displayed by Husserl’s phenomenological method. In several instances, this method was defined by Husserl himself as a “‘sociological’ transcendental philosophy” (Husserl, 1968: 539), or even as a “transcendental sociology” (Husserl, 1966: 220), for it looks into the lived experience of the subject as if the subject were a transcendental intersubjective unit. The Husserliana volumes we refer to throughout this work are: the Fifth Cartesian Meditation (Husserl, 1982), which implicitly sends us to volume 8 (First Philosophy, second part & other important additions), and volumes 13 to 15 of the Husserliana (Husserl, 1973), which are dedicated especially to the issue of intersubjectivity. In what follows, I will focus firstly on the notion of intentionality, secondly on the constitution of the otherness and its objectivity, thirdly on the idea of ego and its life-world.

This paper is focused on the major contributions of the two main schools of semiotic thought in Russia during the 20th century. It considers cultural mythologiesof behaviour as the focal point of the Moscow-Tartu school and then proceeds to the pre-semiotic school of Russian thought, which dealt with the philosophy of the (divine) Name(s). Both traditions are linked by a common preoccupation with the human sign-vehicles-cultural, artistic, literary and religious. Russian semiotics of culture (the author’s life & biography considered as a peculiar kind of a sign-text) and Russian religious philosophy of language (philosophy of the Name) are the most unique scholarly offerings to have originated within the Eastern-European tradition of semiotics.

The article aims to elucidate on the notion of philosophy of culture, particularly in non-Western societies. This is exemplified by the promotion of philosophy,with its advocates and approaches, in Filipino culture. In addition, it gives an account of a type of alienation that has had a profound influence upon the Filipinoexperience, philosophical thought and practice; the so-called dealienation of culture.

Hong Kong is a peculiar case for the study of cultural practices. One of the most Westernized cities in Asia, Hong Kong is, to many people in China, one ofthe most ‘Chinese’ places in the country. Hong Kong’s no-place situation presents an interesting example of the tensions within and without cultural systems and their relations to language.

By discussing Bonduca (1611) a a Jacobean tragi-comedy in the Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher canon, generally judged by scholars to be the work ofthe second one alone, this paper looks into the tragic story of Queen Boadicea, as rewritten in fiction. The cultural and semiotic codes that Bonduca represents are examined in the context of imperialism. The paper explores the conflict between the Romans and the colonized Iceni tribe and discusses the legitimization of colonization in the light of historical records alongside fictional accounts. The paper shows how the Boudican Revolt can be seen as part of the disempowerment of Brittany. The study serves as an example of the need for a complex multi-dimensional framework for the comparative study of literatures and cultures.

Tourism industry is increasingly stripping traveling of one of its most fundamental anthropological and existential values: its being a laboratory in which travelerscan temporarily experience the disruption of their regime of sedentary belonging, protected by a plan of return. According to this perspective, non-touristy travelingis one of the best ways to test the limits of one’s tolerance to cultural diversity and acknowledge, as a consequence, the identity of one’s cultural and existential‘home.’ Yet, modern and contemporary travelogues mostly extol the traveler’s heroic capacity to overcome the limits of tolerance. Claiming that such emphasis stems from the colonial desire to domesticate and assimilate the world and its diversity, the article proposes to subvert this logic and to replace panoramic travelogues, dominated by the will power of subjects, with prosopopoeic travelogues, that tell the stories of how the things of the world, relics of centuries of civilization, reject travelers and their desire of domestication and conquest. As an example of this subversion, the article proposes a semiotic exploration of toilets, their variety, and their ‘cultural resistance.’