“Google Scholars” vs. Umberto Eco

Socially Symbolic Acts By Joseph Francese

This book discusses issues of broad cultural consequence by examining the work of three of Italy’s most prominent living novelists, Umberto Eco, Vincenzo Consolo,’ and Antonio Tabucchi. The introductory chapter continues a discussion of some of the topics already broached in the author’s Narrating Postmodern Time and Space (1997). It uses an approach that is both historicist and psychoanalytic to critically address topics in cultural studies and Italian studies. The book deals with fictions of very recent publication, many of which have been published after the turn of the millennium, filling important gaps in the critical bibliography. Close readings relate texts to their historical and cultural contexts, critiquing their ideology while preserving their utopian moments.

 

 

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Postmodernism By Johannes Willem Bertens, Hans Bertens, Joseph P. Natoli

Featuring summaries of postmodernism’s greatest literary, cultural, and political champions written by a diverse group of scholars, Postmodernism: The Key Figures captures the dominance of a theoretical paradigm that has done nothing less than re-define the very terms of our knowledge and experience. Features summaries of postmodernism’s key figures, written by a diverse group of scholars. Highlights over fifty of postmodernism’s greatest literary, cultural and political champions. Includes an extensive bibliography of resources in postmodernism.

 

 

 

 

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Umberto Eco and the Open Text By Peter E. Bondanella

 

The first comprehensive study in English of Umberto Eco’s theories and fictions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Reading Eco By Rocco Capozzi

Umberto Eco, best known for his novels, “The Name of the Rose”, “Foucault’s Pendulum”, and “The Island of the Day Before”, has also written numerous scholarly books, including “A Theory of Semiotics, Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language”, “The Limits of Interpretation”, and “Apocalypse Postponed”, all from Indiana University Press.

 

 

 

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Eco's Chaosmos By Cristina Farronato

While Umberto Eco’s intellectual itinerary was marked by his early studies of post-Crocean aesthetics and his spectacular concentration on linguistics, information theory, structuralism, semiotics, cognitive science, and media studies, what constitutes the peculiarity of his critical and fiction writing is the tension between a typically medieval search for a code and the hermeneutic representative of deconstructive tendencies. This tension between cosmos and chaos, order and disorder, is reflected in the word chaosmos. In this brilliant assessment of the philosophical basis of Eco’s critical and fictional writing, Cristina Farronato explores the other distinctive aspect of Eco’s thought – the struggle for a composition of opposites, the outcome deriving from his ability to elicit similar contrasts from the past and re-play them in modern terms. Focusing principally on how Eco’s scholarly background influenced his study of semiotics, Farronato analyzes The Name of the Rose in relation to William of Ockham’s,epistemology, C.S. Peirce’s work on abduction, and Wittgenstein’s theory of language. She discusses Foucault’s Pendulum as an explicit comment on the modern debate on interpretation through a direct reference to Early Modern hermetic thought, correlates The Island of the Day Before as a postmodern mixture of science and superstition, and reviews Baudolino as an historical/fantastic novel that once again situates the Middle Ages in a postmodern context. Eco’s Chaosmos demonstrates how Eco’s use of semiotic theory is important for an understanding of the postmodern aspects of today’s literature and culture.

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Illuminating Eco By Charlotte Ross, Rochelle Sibley

This text covers the range of British scholarship on the prolific literary and theoretical work of Umberto Eco. With essays by scholars such as Michael Caesar and David Robey, the volume provides an overview of current research being carried out by a new generation of academics. In addition, it provides an opportunity to view the interaction between Eco’s fiction and his theoretical texts and suggests future avenues of research. The interdisciplinary nature of the contributions makes this collection accessible to Italianists and non-Italian speakers alike in order to situate Eco’s work in the wider literary and critical sphere. Contributions have been divided into four sections, with the first containing essays that engage with Eco’s writing through a strong awareness of the reading strategies suggested and required by his texts. The second section is composed of essays that discuss different approaches to interpretative strategies, including the relationship between Eco’s theoretical writing and his own fiction. The third part consists of new responses to Eco’s work, each of which questions previous theoretical interpretations and creates new applications for established approaches. Finally, the fourth section contains a written response from Eco himself to some of the questions raised by these essays, and a translation of the final chapter from his most recent publication, “Sulla letteratura”, which discusses the development of his narrative works from conception to execution.

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