Universidad y mass media

El autor del texto examina las relaciones entre Medios de Masas y Universidad, en todos sus puntos de conexión y efectos recíprocos. Nos recuerda la diferente función hoy establecida para ambos medios respecto a la transmisión de Información, y señala cómo actualmente la Universidad tiene una vital función en el completar el vacío dejado por los medios masivos respecto a conocimientos y cultura

On the ontology of fictional characters: A semiotic approach

Why are we deeply moved by the misfortune of Anna Karenina if we are fully aware that she is simply a fictional character who does not exist in our world? But what does it mean that fictional characters do not exist? The present article is concerned with the ontology of fictional characters. The author concludes that successful fictional characters become paramount examples of the ‘real’ human condition because they live in an incomplete world what we have cognitive access to but cannot influence in any way and where no deeds can be undone. Unlike all the other semiotic objects, which are culturally subject to revisions, and perhaps only similar to mathematical entities, the fictual characters will never change and will remain the actors of what they did once and forever

Giorgio Prodi and the lower threshold of semiotics

Publication of a translation of the text of Umberto Eco’s talk given in honour of Giorgio Prodi in 1988

The University and the Mass Media

In 1988, the University of Bologna celebrated its ninth centennial. The event was of such importance that the celebrations began in the fall of 1987 and ended happily in the springtime of 1989; otherwise, they could have continued uninterrupted until the dawn of the tenth centennial, like those trees decorated with bulbs for Christmas 1992 that are still lit up in many areas of New York City, ready for Christmas 1993. In the course of these celebrations there was a congress on the history of universities, and I was asked to say something by way of a concluding speech about the relationship between the university and the mass media. I thought this was an important topic since no precise criteria exist for determining where the job of a historian ends and that of the journalist begins. If the reconstruction of what happened yesterday is history, why shouldn\u27t the reconstruction of what is on the verge of happening also be history? When I was requested by my friends at Yale to speak today on the same subject, I wondered if what I had said then could apply here. In my speech at Bologna, I focused on the problem from the point of view of European universities, and it is well known that the American situation is rather different. Is the relationship between the university and the mass media in the United States radically different from that in Europe, and in particular, from that in Italy

Animal language before Sebeok

Publication of the text of Umberto Eco’s talk given at a symposium held in honour of Thomas A. Sebeok (1920–2001) in San Marino in 2002

Drift and Unlimited Semiosis

Lecture given in Bloomington for the Indiana University Institute for Advanced Study on July 19, 1989