Juri Lotman - Culture, Memory and History
Essays in Cultural Semiotics
Editors: Tamm, Marek (Ed.)
Free Preview- Brings together, for the first time, Juri Lotman’s most important articles in the field of cultural theory, memory studies and theory of history
- Offers a comprehensive introduction to Lotman’s theory of cultural memory
- Demonstrates that Lotman was one of the first to identify memory as a major subject of cultural studies and the first to propose a general theory of cultural memory
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- About this book
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This volume brings together a selection of Juri Lotman’s late essays, published between 1979 and 1995. While Lotman is widely read in the fields of semiotics and literary studies, his innovative ideas about history and memory remain relatively unknown. The articles in this volume, most of which are appearing in English for the first time, lay out Lotman’s semiotic model of culture, with its emphasis on mnemonic processes. Lotman’s concept of culture as the non-hereditary memory of a community that is in a continuous process of self-interpretation will be of interest to scholars working in cultural theory, memory studies and the theory of history.
- About the authors
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Juri Lotman (1922–1993), the Russian-Estonian literary scholar and semiotician, was one of the most original and important cultural theorists of the twentieth century, the founder of the well-known Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics, and the initiator of the discipline of cultural semiotics. His works translated into English include Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture (1990), Culture and Explosion (2009), The Unpredictable Workings of Culture (2013), and Non-Memoirs (2014).
Marek Tamm is Professor of Cultural History at the School of Humanities in Tallinn University, Estonia. He is the co-editor of Rethinking Historical Time: New Approaches to Presentism (2019) and Debating New Approaches to History (2018), and editor of Afterlife of Events: Perspectives on Mnemohistory (2015).
Brian James Baer is Professor of Russian and Translation Studies at Kent State University, USA. He is the author of Translation and the Making of Modern Russian Literature (2016) and the translator of Juri Lotman's final monograph, The Unpredictable Workings of Culture (2013).
- Reviews
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“Like any field, memory studies needs an accurate and comprehensive collective memory, and Juri Lotman’s brilliant contributions have not yet received the attention they deserve. This compendium, however, does not just fill a lacuna in our understanding of the field’s past, but will serve as a powerful force for its future.” (Jeffrey K. Olick, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Sociology and History, University of Virginia, USA)
“This long-overdue collection makes available to English readers key essays by one of the most important cultural theorists of the twentieth century. It will rewrite the history of memory studies and be indispensable reading for all scholars interested in the role of memory in culture.” (Ann Rigney, Professor of Comparative Literature, Utrecht University, the Netherlands)
- Table of contents (17 chapters)
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Introduction: Juri Lotman’s Semiotic Theory of History and Cultural Memory
Pages 1-26
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Translator’s Preface
Pages 27-30
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The Phenomenon of Culture
Pages 33-48
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The “Contract” and “Self-Surrender” as Archetypal Models of Culture
Pages 49-65
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Toward a Theory of Cultural Interaction: The Semiotic Aspect
Pages 67-81
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Table of contents (17 chapters)
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Bibliographic Information
- Bibliographic Information
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- Book Title
- Juri Lotman - Culture, Memory and History
- Book Subtitle
- Essays in Cultural Semiotics
- Editors
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- Marek Tamm
- Translated by
- Baer, B.
- Copyright
- 2019
- Publisher
- Palgrave Macmillan
- Copyright Holder
- The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
- eBook ISBN
- 978-3-030-14710-5
- DOI
- 10.1007/978-3-030-14710-5
- Hardcover ISBN
- 978-3-030-14709-9
- Softcover ISBN
- 978-3-030-14712-9
- Edition Number
- 1
- Number of Pages
- VI, 275
- Number of Illustrations
- 1 b/w illustrations
- Topics