The renowned semiotician and social scientist Gunther Kress will give a public lecture on ‘A social semiotic account of meaning and meaning-making: getting beyond the past and its frames’ at the Department of Semiotic of the University of Tartu. In his lecture, Professor Kress will discuss the traces of past frames and their continuing limiting effects on present understandings. His concept of ‘semiotic work’ expands the traditional understanding of learning and communication. The central thesis of the lecture is that communication is always also learning. Gunther Kress is Professor of Semiotics and Education at University College London, University of London. His most important works include ‘Before Writing: Rethinking the Paths to Literacy’, ‘Literacy in the New Media Age’, and ‘Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design’, co-authored with Theo van Leeuwen.
JURI LOTMAN LECTURES is a series dedicated to his memory. The series calls for continuous dialogical inception of new ideas by inviting the scholars who are already in dialogue with Lotman’s legacy to elaborate their ideas in dialogue with those who value the semiotic tradition of Tartu-Moscow School.
The lecture series is supported by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (Center of Excellence in Cultural Theory CECT).