Metalanguage in Carroll\u27s Jabberwocky and Biggs\u27s reRead

In her article Metalanguage in Carroll\u27s \u27Jabberwocky\u27 and Biggs\u27s reRead Asunción López-Varela discusses Simon Biggs\u27s installation reRead \u3chttp://www.littlepig.org.uk/reRead/reRead.htm\u3e in relation to Lewis Carroll\u27s poem. López-Varela posits that both works draw attention to the functioning of self-reflexive semiotic mechanisms present in human discourse and gestures. Based on the examples of the poem and the installation, López-Varela discusses how the human mind creates narratological coherence out of random and recursive patterns and argues that it does so by including other media which enable formats beyond the textual and the iconic. Further, López-Varela discusses how we are pre-disposed to process any semiotic exchange in terms of spatiotemporal sequences and interpret signs with the help of prior knowledge gathered from intersubjective experiences

KICs (Knowledge Information Communities): Comunidades de conocimiento y emprendimiento joven en el marco programa de investigación Estudios sobre Intermedialidad y Mediación Intercultural SIIM

El proyecto se ha dirigido al fortalecimiento de un marco de actuación común para creación de estrategias académicas en contextos profesionalizantes dentro de las Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales, contribuyendo a canalizar de manera más efectiva las salidas profesionales así como crear comunidades de conocimiento a nivel universitario y empresarial. Siguiendo los objetivos que se contemplaban, hemos puesto en marcha de modelos teórico-prácticos y tecnológicos para el desarrollo metodológico-didáctico en torno a estrategias de investigación, innovación y creación artística, orientados a la formación complementaria de los estudiantes de Grado en lo que se refiere a la gestión cultural y el emprendimiento

Comparative Cultural Studies. Multimodality and Intercultural Mediation

[Abstract] In this paper we present our current research that draws attention to the material vehicles of language, focusing on the multimodal forms that are becoming common place in Computer Mediated Communication. We take as starting point socio-constructivist approaches that have maintained that the development of higher mental functions is sociogenetic, thus arguing that cognitive development is first the result of exposure to the social plane and then to the psychological plane, a move that is semiotically mediated in social interaction. This conception of human cognitive development offers insights into the relations between mind development, education processes and socio-cultural and technological implications. We claim that acts of production, distribution and reception of cultural objects form the very symbolic structure of cultural phenomena, and that these performances are located in the materiality of informational exchanges. Furthermore, we indicate that discursive practices and images form the complex multimodal network of signifying practices that constructs realities, rather than simply representing them, and that socially constructed meaning or what we call “culture” takes place through the negotiation of stories, images, and meanings, that is, through performative, jointly-constructed agreements, power relations, and the authorisation and legitimating of social positions. Finally, we situate the study of art is a powerful metacognitive tool that portrays the evolution of human culture. We defend the important role of humanities in processes of social construction and contend that this role is further enhanced through the use of multimodal forms of support. The example of a piece of electronic literature (“30 Days of Rain” by Travis Alber serves a practical show-case that presents the need for a new framework on multimodal social semiotics capable of explain multimodal encounters mediated by digital media

Génesis semiótica de la intermedialidad: fundamentos cognitivos y socio-constructivistas de la comunicación

In the contemporary context in which we are immersed in a seamless mobility, both physical and ideological, mediated by the speed of transportation of people and data (Internet) through the physical boundaries of our body and the territorial borders of our communities, the impact of research on intersubjectivity is necessarily linked to changes in media materials that promote communicative exchanges, that is, to the notion of intermediality. this article seeks to present an outline of the complex network that relates both concepts.En el contexto contemporáneo en el que nos encontramos inmersos en una movilidad continua, tanto física como ideológica, mediada por la velocidad de los medios de transporte de personas y de datos (Internet) a través no solo de las fronteras físicas de nuestro cuerpo, sino de las fronteras territoriales de nuestras comunidades, el impacto de la investigación en intersubjetividad se encuentra necesariamente vinculado a los cambios en los medios materiales que propician los intercambios comunicativos, es decir, a la noción de intermedialidad. Este artículo busca presentar un esbozo del complejo entramado que vincula ambos conceptos.Dans le contexte actuel dans lequel nous sommes immergés dans une mobilité sans couture, à la fois physique et idéologique, médiée par la vitesse de transport des personnes et des dones (Internet), grâce à des limites physiques de notre corps et des frontières territoriales de nos communautés, l’impact de la recherche sur l’intersubjectivité est nécessairement liée à l’évolution des matières médiatiques que favorisent les échanges de communication, c’est-à-dire, à la notion de intermédialité. cet article vise à présenter les grandes lignes du réseau complexe qui concerne les deux concepts

Proto-Transmedial Narrative Structures: Lewis Carroll’s A Tangled Tale

This paper explores A Tangled Tale, a collection of mathematical puzzles that Charles Ludwick Dodgson serialized in The Monthly Packet between 1880 and 1885. The hybrid narrative patterns that present mathematical questions by means of fictional storytelling are a unique form of scientific knowledge dissemination that anticipates the breakdown of narrative linearity and the emergence of multiform formats present in transmedia. An inquiry into the Rule of Three and infinite regress tie the knots of a tale that highlights crucial insights on the algorithmic foregrounding of the strategies of transmedia design. Such strategies can be seen as the intersection of narrative as well as mathematical expertise that turn the media galaxy into a cosmic affair

Specular Metamorphoses: Harriet Prescott Spofford’s “The Ray of Displacement”

This paper focuses on Harriet Prescott Spofford’s short story “The Ray of Displacement” which appeared in The Metropolitan Magazine in October 1903. The story deals with a crystal structure and the adventures of an unnamed scientist falsely accused of stealing it. The scientist’s invention of a Y-ray, capable of separating atoms and molecules so that solid bodies can penetrate one another, leads him to the discovery of disembodiment and invisibility. The story indirectly refers to St. Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians where Revelation is shown as a riddle or enigma reflected on a looking glass. Spofford offers a hybrid narrative which fuses philanthropy, ethical concerns, and the power of sympathy, typically attributed to the female gender, with scientific forms of perceiving transcendence dominated by male consciousness. Inverting the angelic rhetoric present in the conception of the “Angel in the house,” Spofford displays a complex story that engenders the supernatural

The Future of Hybrid Narratology in «Alice Adventures in Wonderland»

In 2015 we have celebrated the anniversaries of the publication of Alice Adventures in Wonderland, one of the master works of World Literature, a work that shows a wish to unite knowledge from diverse disciplines in order to create a unified frame of understanding; a disposition known under the term «consilience», coined by William Whewell in 1840 and popularized by the Harvard Professor Edward O. Wilson in 1998. Carroll’s works, professedly for children, attest this interdisciplinary crossing between science and humanities. A semiotic study of these works may help clarify the foundations of analogic thought and its rupture. Alongside the exploration of the relationship between ambiguity and creativity, the essay seeks to enter the mechanisms that may enable intergeneric as well as intermedial translation of concepts and forms, each with its own specific languages. This would allow the study of Welt Literature, within Comparative Literature, from a formal perspective, and not just as a mechanism of circulation, as it has been studied until now.En 2015 se han cumplido 150 años de la publicación de Las aventuras de Alicia en el país de las maravillas, una de las obras maestras de la literatura universal que da muestra de una voluntad de unir conocimientos de distintas disciplinas para crear un marco unificado de entendimiento, disposición que se conoce con el nombre de «consiliencia», término acuñado por William Whewell en 1840, y extendido por el catedrático de Harvard Edward O. Wilson en 1998. Las obras supuestamente infantiles de Lewis Carroll dan fe de este cruce interdisciplinar entre ciencia y humanidades. Su estudio desde una perspectiva semiótica puede ayudar a clarificar los fundamentos del pensamiento analógico y su quiebra. Además de explorar la relación entre ambigüedad y creatividad, el ensayo busca adentrarse en los mecanismos que puedan permitir la translación de conceptos y formas de un género a otro, y también de un medio material a otro, cada uno con lenguajes específicos, con el fin estudiar la denominada Welt Literature, dentro de la Literatura Comparada, desde una perspectiva formal, y no solo como un mecanismo de circulación como se ha venido haciendo hasta ahora

Antiabecedarian Desires: Odd Narratology and Digital Textuality

Los sistemas de escritura rompen barreras temporales y permiten compartir conocimiento y preservarlo. Como si fuesen organismos vivos, las estructuras narratológicas que conforman la comunicación textual crecen a partir de principios de orden y formas de codificación cuyas raíces retroceden hasta un proto-alfabeto de origen semítico. Sin embargo, la historia literaria incluye muchos ejemplos que, cual virus, han buscado quebrantar el cuerpo de la textualidad alfabética. Este ensayo estudia tres artistas fundamentales, James Joyce, Jorge Luis Borges,William Burroughs, junto con varias obras contemporáneas de literatura electrónica. Todos ellos ponen en cuestión los principios organizativos alfabéticos y anticipan el debate sobre la importancia o no de las estructuras lineales en los sistemas de representación