Semiotics of art: Prague School contributions

by Ladislav Matejka

A vital force in European linguistics and literary scholarship in the 1930s, the Prague School opened up the rich field of semiotics and art. The study of art as the creative use of the sign became one of its principal areas of critical examination, and in this collection of 21 essays this concept of semiotics is brought to bear on a wide range of the arts, including theater, film, poetry, folk art, and painting.The editors are professors in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literature at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Genres: Semiotics, Nonfiction

298 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1976

About the author

Ladislav Matějka (May 30, 1919 in České Budějovice – September 29, 2012 in West Newton, Massachusetts) was a Czech scholar of semiotics and linguistic theory, who translated and published many contributions to Prague linguistic circle theory. He received his doctorate in Charles University in Prague in 1948 and then emigrated to the U.S. From 1956 until 1989 he taught at University of Michigan in the Slavic Department. In 1962, he founded Michigan Slavic Publications, a series that has published more than 100 volumes by authors such as Roman Jakobson and Nikolai Trubetzkoy.

From 1982-1993 he edited the series Cross Currents that published material by Milan Kundera, Josef Škvorecký and Czesław Miłosz. His academic correspondence has been deposited at Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University.

Reviews

[Dan Clore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great anthology containing a lot of excellent work, mostly by members of the Prague Linguistic Circle in the 1930s.