Engaging with Material Semiotics

Material semiotics was introduced as an umbrella term that should better capture what Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and scholars in feminist Science & Technology Studies (STS) set out to study: How materiality and meaning are (being) related and what effects they produce as relational (heterogeneous) entities (Law 2023; 2008). Yet, proponents of the term material semiotics rarely articulate the implications of material semiotics as a version of semiotics, i.e. as “a theory of signs”. Thus, in a first step, this course aims to explore some of the root concepts stemming from semiotics (and materialism) to better understand and position material semiotics as a (radical) empirical approach in the social sciences. In the second step, some of the defining references of material semiotics will be introduced and discussed. The last step will actively engage with selected empirical cases where we apply the analytic capacities acquired from the first two steps.

Course aims:

• Providing a general overview of semiotic approaches that can be relevant for a more theoretical discussion of the interdisciplinary and empirical field of STS
• Developing an analytical perspective within „material semiotics“ that allows to differentiate between various semiotic traditions
• Applying a material semiotic approach along two or three selected case studies

Questions:

• What are the different roots of “semiotics” and how do they matter for contemporary work in what is called “material semiotics”?
• What is the understanding of “materiality” in the various semiotic “approaches”?
• What are contemporary formations of material semiotics and how do they differ? What are their similarities?
• How can we empirically engage with the versions of material semiotics?

Law, John (2023): Material Semiotics. In: P. Atkinson, S. Delamont, A. Cernat, J.W. Sakshaug, & R.A. Williams (Eds.), SAGE Research Methods Foundations. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781529751079747550

Law, John (2008): Actor Network Theory and Material Semiotics. In: B.S. Turner (Ed.), The New Blackwell Companion to Social Theory. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444304992.ch7