Alin Olteanu – författare

Semiotic Theory of Learning asks what learning is and what brings it about, challenging the hegemony of psychological and sociological constructions of learning in order to develop a burgeoning literature in semiotics as an educational foundation. Drawing on theoretical research and its application in empirical studies, the book attempts to avoid the problematization of the distinction between theory and practice in semiotics. It covers topics such as signs, significance and semiosis; the ontology of learning; the limits of learning; ecosemiotics; ecology and sexuality.The book is written by five of the key figures in the semiotics field, each committed to the belief that living is a process of interaction through acts of signification with a signifying environment. While the authors are agreed on the value of semiotic frameworks, the book aims not to present an entirely coherent line in every respect, but rather to reflect ongoing scholarship and debates in the area. In light of this, the book offers a range of possible interpretations of major semiotic theorists, unsettling assumptions while offering a fresh, and still developing, series of perspectives on learning from academics grounded in semiotics. Semiotic Theory of Learning is a timely and valuable text that will be of great interest to academics, researchers and postgraduates working in the fields of educational studies, semiotics, psychology, philosophy, applied linguistics and media studies.

This book proposes a relational turn in higher education by conceptualizing knowledge and pedagogy as relational and multimodal, analyzed through three dimensions of relationality: social, technological, and environmental.The volume draws on interdisciplinary approaches that make a case for integrating these interconnected and distinct dimensions in higher education theory and practice. Its novelty lies in combining such a variety of perspectives with Peircean semiotics to explore what it means to learn and live relationally. It emphasizes the importance of critical reflection, rooted in an environmental understanding of knowledge and digital media. This approach integrates materiality, place, and space in higher education, positioning caring, critically reflective and imaginative interactions and interpretations as central for knowledge growth. The volume features practical case studies of relational pedagogy through dialogues with diverse higher education practitioners, which embrace expression and creation through more than one dominant modality of communication and being. The book envisions students and educators as relational agents, with relational awareness and responsibility, aware of their multimodal identities. It highlights how a relational multimodal paradigm can serve as a way forward for universities to address global challenges concerning social, (post)digital, and environmental futures.This innovative book will be of interest to scholars, students, teachers, and policymakers in higher education, semiotics and multimodality, as well as postdigital, sociomaterial and futures studies.

This book proposes a relational turn in higher education by conceptualizing knowledge and pedagogy as relational and multimodal, analyzed through three dimensions of relationality: social, technological, and environmental.The volume draws on interdisciplinary approaches that make a case for integrating these interconnected and distinct dimensions in higher education theory and practice. Its novelty lies in combining such a variety of perspectives with Peircean semiotics to explore what it means to learn and live relationally. It emphasizes the importance of critical reflection, rooted in an environmental understanding of knowledge and digital media. This approach integrates materiality, place, and space in higher education, positioning caring, critically reflective and imaginative interactions and interpretations as central for knowledge growth. The volume features practical case studies of relational pedagogy through dialogues with diverse higher education practitioners, which embrace expression and creation through more than one dominant modality of communication and being. The book envisions students and educators as relational agents, with relational awareness and responsibility, aware of their multimodal identities. It highlights how a relational multimodal paradigm can serve as a way forward for universities to address global challenges concerning social, (post)digital, and environmental futures.This innovative book will be of interest to scholars, students, teachers, and policymakers in higher education, semiotics and multimodality, as well as postdigital, sociomaterial and futures studies.

Making Media Futures offers a multi-perspectival exploration of how imaginaries and knowledge of the future are constructed in and through various media.The volume addresses the discursive dimensions of imaginaries and future visions as well as the impact of technological, material, and cultural conditions on the propagation of future discourses through media. Providing both theoretically detailed and empirically rich investigations, the contributions offer a wide range of cases spanning the century from the end of World War II until today and looking at examples from the Southern Hemisphere as well as the Global North. Bringing together scholars in media studies, science and technology studies (STS), and the history and philosophy of technology, the chapters discuss future visions and imaginations of quantum computing, the uncertainty and impact of AI-based text-to-image generation, the ideology behind 5G telecommunication standards, imaginaries of the Internet of Things, transmedia strategies in global and local climate protests, how broadcast radio was implicated in the evangelical mission imaginary, and how early visions of automating scholarly information management shaped standards and ideals of academia. The volume thus complements existing approaches and analytical frameworks for the study of imaginaries and futures discourses with perspectives that are sensitive to the plurality of media-specific conditions and technologies.The book will interest students and scholars working in media studies, STS, history and philosophy as well as at the intersection of engineering, humanities and social sciences, on matters such as sustainability, ethics, and responsible innovation.

Making Media Futures offers a multi-perspectival exploration of how imaginaries and knowledge of the future are constructed in and through various media.The volume addresses the discursive dimensions of imaginaries and future visions as well as the impact of technological, material, and cultural conditions on the propagation of future discourses through media. Providing both theoretically detailed and empirically rich investigations, the contributions offer a wide range of cases spanning the century from the end of World War II until today and looking at examples from the Southern Hemisphere as well as the Global North. Bringing together scholars in media studies, science and technology studies (STS), and the history and philosophy of technology, the chapters discuss future visions and imaginations of quantum computing, the uncertainty and impact of AI-based text-to-image generation, the ideology behind 5G telecommunication standards, imaginaries of the Internet of Things, transmedia strategies in global and local climate protests, how broadcast radio was implicated in the evangelical mission imaginary, and how early visions of automating scholarly information management shaped standards and ideals of academia. The volume thus complements existing approaches and analytical frameworks for the study of imaginaries and futures discourses with perspectives that are sensitive to the plurality of media-specific conditions and technologies.The book will interest students and scholars working in media studies, STS, history and philosophy as well as at the intersection of engineering, humanities and social sciences, on matters such as sustainability, ethics, and responsible innovation.

Semiotic Theory of Learning asks what learning is and what brings it about, challenging the hegemony of psychological and sociological constructions of learning in order to develop a burgeoning literature in semiotics as an educational foundation. Drawing on theoretical research and its application in empirical studies, the book attempts to avoid the problematization of the distinction between theory and practice in semiotics. It covers topics such as signs, significance and semiosis; the ontology of learning; the limits of learning; ecosemiotics; ecology and sexuality.The book is written by five of the key figures in the semiotics field, each committed to the belief that living is a process of interaction through acts of signification with a signifying environment. While the authors are agreed on the value of semiotic frameworks, the book aims not to present an entirely coherent line in every respect, but rather to reflect ongoing scholarship and debates in the area. In light of this, the book offers a range of possible interpretations of major semiotic theorists, unsettling assumptions while offering a fresh, and still developing, series of perspectives on learning from academics grounded in semiotics. Semiotic Theory of Learning is a timely and valuable text that will be of great interest to academics, researchers and postgraduates working in the fields of educational studies, semiotics, psychology, philosophy, applied linguistics and media studies.

This book explores the interdisciplinarity of semiotics and communication studies, comprising both theoretical explorations and semiotic applications to communication with theoretical bearings. These disciplines have generally been understood as mutually implicit, but there still are many unexplored research avenues in this area, particularly on a conceptual level. The book offers broad insights into the epistemological relations between semiotics and other approaches to communication from perspectives such as sociology, philosophy of language and communication theory. As such, it sheds light on the communication of knowledge.Semiotics is currently enjoying increasing popularity within the humanities and social sciences. Understood as relational logic (Charles Peirce) or hermeneutics (structuralism and poststructuralism), semiotics fundamentally implies certain positions with regard to communication. Because of the generality and conceptual vagueness of semiosis and communication, how one elucidates the other is still an underexplored theme. With some pioneering studies of this relation, the books examines various fields, such as language, code, learning, embodiment, political communication, media, cinema, cuisine, multimodality and intertextuality.

This highly readable book develops a numanistic, and specifically semiotic approach to multiculturalism. It reveals how semiotics provides fresh and valuable insights into multiculturalism: in contrast to the binary logic of dualistic philosophy, semiotic logic does not understand the value of truth in rigid terms of ‘true’ or ‘false’, ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ only. The value of truth resides in meaning, which is a dynamic, evolutionary phenomenon, rooted, nevertheless, in factuality.Drawing on recent developments in biosemiotics, the book presents a theoretical approach to multiculturalism, regarding the lives of people living in multicultural environments. Rather than analyzing political or economic phenomena, it offers a semiotic analysis of multiculturalism and discusses its educational implications. It also invites readers to regard learning as a phenomenon of ecological sign growth and to understand multiculturalism along the same lines. As such, itbrings together the life and social sciences and the humanities in a unified perspective, in an approach fitting postmodernism.Developing a postmodern philosophy for contemporary non-experts, which allows distancing from political discourse in favor of a posthumanistic stand, where altruism is seen as an opportunity, not a threat, this book appeals to a wide readership, from scholars seeking state-of-the-art theories to general readers looking for a thought-provoking and enlightening read.

This highly readable book develops a numanistic, and specifically semiotic approach to multiculturalism.

It appeals to students and researchers working in philosophy of education broadly, semiotic-oriented approaches to education, as well as discussions on multimodality.

This book discusses, from various angles, the new trends in Artificial intelligence (AI), given the current so-called golden period that this field is undergoing. Recent progress in machine learning applications, such as image recognition and natural language processing, have raised the level of optimism that one day an AI can exhibit genuine intelligence. In games like Go and chess, human players have been surpassed by computers. As during earlier periods of AI optimism, there is increasing talk about domain-general artificial intelligence being possible. But just how intelligent are current AI systems, and what can we expect in the future? What will a world with an increasingly important role for AI systems be like? Which shifts with regard to the concept of intelligence as well as the societal order do these developments have? Authors with different views on the present and future of AI research and the role of AI in society discuss these questions, illustrating the diversity of discussions on AI and the many ways our lives are influenced by it.

This book investigates the philosophy of education implicit in the semiotics of Charles Peirce. It is commonly accepted that the acts of learning and teaching imply affection of some sort, and Charles Peirce’s evolutionary semiotics thoroughly explains learning as an act of love. According to Peirce, we evolved to learn and to love; learning from other people has proved to be one of the best ways to carry out our infinite pursuit of truth, since love is the very characteristic of truth. As such, the teacher and the student practise love in their relation with one another. Grounded within an edusemiotics framework and also exploring the iconic turn in semiotics and recent developments in biosemiotics, this is the first book-length study of Peirce’s contribution to the philosophy of education.

Semiotics has ever-changing vistas in consonance with changes in the ever-increasing complexity of life on Planet Earth. This book presents cutting-edge work in semiotics, projecting developments in the future of the field. Authored by leading semioticians, Semiotics and its Masters, Volume 2 contains essays on learning, transdisciplinarity, science, scaffolding, narrative, selfhood, ecosemiotics, agency, cybersemiotics, pornography, nostalgia, language and money. The volume presents a panorama of semiotics as it will develop in the third decade of the 21st century. This book will furnish the reader with an overview of the challenges that face explorers in the contemporary world of signs.

Semiotics has ever-changing vistas in consonance with changes in the ever-increasing complexity of life on Planet Earth. This book presents cutting-edge work in semiotics, projecting developments in the future of the field. Authored by leading semioticians, Semiotics and its Masters, Volume 2 contains essays on learning, transdisciplinarity, science, scaffolding, narrative, selfhood, ecosemiotics, agency, cybersemiotics, pornography, nostalgia, language and money. The volume presents a panorama of semiotics as it will develop in the third decade of the 21st century. This book will furnish the reader with an overview of the challenges that face explorers in the contemporary world of signs.

This unique book gathers articles from the numanistic perspective of multidisciplinarity and innovation, connected by three main theoretical interests or overarching themes: music, semiotics and translation. Offering an eclectic collection of innovative papers that address such topics as culture, musicology, art consumption, meaning, codes and national identities, to name a few, it has a broad appeal across the humanities and social sciences. The contributing authors draw on various schools and methodologies, including psychology, psychoanalysis, social semiotics, semiotic modelling, deconstruction and cultural analysis. By approaching established themes in new and challenging ways, this highly engaging book has the potential to advance the state of the art in various topics. It appeals to all scholars investigating cultural identity, linguistics and translation, music consumption, performance, semiotic theories and various intersections of these and related topics.