The semiotics of culture in the Lotman-Eco dialogue

Abstract

In this paper we present some considerations about Yuri Lotman’s semiotics of culture in the context of his dialogue with the Italian semiotician Umberto Eco in the theoretical field, by comparing Lotman’s model of cultural dynamics with Eco’s concept of “closed” and “open work”, and also on the occasion of the publication in the Soviet Union of Eco’s first novel The name of the Rose. Lotman’s essay “The exit of the labyrinth”, dedicated to this novel, brings an opportunity to follow the dialogue between two great scholars of sign, one of which, to exemplify his theoretical constructs, mainly relies on Russian culture, while the other chooses a genre of mass literature, the detective novel. This comparison shows clearly the expansion of the field of semiotic studies in the second half of the twentieth century as a result of which semiotics starts to analyze culture in general and mass culture in particular.