Semiotics of Cities, Selves, and Cultures : Explorations in Semiotic Anthropology

396 Pages·1991·10.89 MB·English

by  Milton Singer

Semiotics of Cities, Selves, and Cultures
Approaches to Semiotics
102
Editorial Committee
Thomas A. Sebeok
Roland Posner
Alain Rey
Mouton de Gruyter
Berlin · New York
Semiotics of Cities, Selves,
and Cultures
Explorations in Semiotic Anthropology
by
Milton Singer
Mouton de Gruyter
Berlin · New York 1991
Mouton de Gruyter (formerly Mouton, The Hague)
is a Division of Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin.
© Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines of the
ANSI to ensure permanence and durability.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Singer, Milton B.
Semiotics of cities, selves, and cultures : explorations in
semiotic anthropology / by Milton Singer.
p. cm. — (Approaches to semiotics ; 102)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-89925-726-7 (alk. paper)
1. Culture—Semiotic models. 2. Ethnology — Philoso-
phy. 3. Symbolism. 4. Cities and towns —United States. 5.
Cities and towns —India. I. Title. II. Series.
GN452.5.S57 1991
306'.01 — dc20 91-22332
CIP
Die Deutsche Bibliothek — Cataloging in Publication Data
Singer, Milton:
Semiotics of cities, selves, and cultures : explorations in semiotic
anthropology / by Milton Singer. — Berlin ; New York :
Mouton de Gruyter, 1991
(Approaches to semiotics ; 102)
ISBN 3-11-012601-X
NE: GT
© Copyright 1991 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., D-1000 Berlin 30
All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of
this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic
or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Typesetting: Asian Research Service, Hong Kong. — Printing: Ratzlow Druck, Berlin. —
Binding: Lüderitz & Bauer, Berlin — Printed in Germany.
For Fred Eggan
1906-1991

Contents
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: On remembering some founding fathers and
mothers 1
1. Cultural performances in Madras 4
2. Revisits to Lloyd Warner's "Yankee City" 6
3. A semiotics of personal and social identities 9
4. The decline of the natural science model of culture
and the emergence of a semiotic model 13
5. Peirce, Malinowski and the semiotic model of culture 18
6. Towards a conversation of cultures 20
Search for a great tradition in cultural performances 24
1. Defining the unit of field study 26
2. Defining the units of observation: Cultural
performances 28
3. Analysis of cultural performances 30
3.1. The cultural stage 31
3.2. Cultural specialists 32
3.3. The social organization of tradition in the village 34
3.4. Cultural media 35
4. From field study to the study of a total civilization 38
Yankee City in renaissance 42
1. Cultural revitalization, revivalism and progress 44
2. From demolition only to demolition with restoration 51
3. Semiotics of urban renewal and restoration 58
4. Conclusion: Restorationists and modernists in a museum
without walls 64
A semiotic of the city: Purusha and Corbusier's modulor
as architectural symbols 72
1. The City as a community of interpretation 72
viii Contents
2. The City as a combination of opposites: Tradition
and innovation 84
3. Le Corbusier: The man, the monument, and the cosmos 96
4. Postscript 106
5. Summary and conclusion 109
6. Epilogue 118
The symbolic and historic structure of an American identity 129
1. A changing American ethos? 129
2. Revisiting Warner's "Yankee City" 132
3. Historic reenactments as secular rituals 134
4. Historic reenactments as cultural performances 138
5. Mystical identification with ancestors or role-playing? 140
The semiotics of the id 146
1. Introduction: How is the id culturally constituted? 146
2. The names of the id 149
3. Symbolism: The "language" of the id 154
4. The id's family romances 158
5. Semiotic triads and Oedipal triangles 161
6. Conclusion: Cultural relativism, human nature,
and semiotics 164
A conversation of cultures: The United States and
Southern Asia 169
1. Emergence of the ideal of a conversation of cultures after
the Second World War 170
2. National steps toward intercultural education 171
3. The formative period at Chicago 173
4. A new kind of area studies: The Redfield model 176
5. An undergraduate introduction to South Asian
civilizations 179
6. From ethnocentric images to scholarly knowledge 180
7. From outside to inside views 182
8. Toward a social anthropology of civilizations 184
9. Symbols, myths, and cultural performances 185
10. Conclusion: Toward a civilization of the dialogue 186
11. Postscript 187
Contents ix
A neglected source of L6vi-Strauss' structuralism:
Radcliffe-Brown, Russell, and Whitehead 189
1. Prologue 189
2. Radcliffe-Brown's philosophy of science 196
3. Social structure and structural form 207
4. Dual opposition — social and logical 213
5. The construction of primitive cosmologies 220
6. The homology between nature and culture as a postulate
in primitive thought 227
7. Conclusion: From an "order of odors" to the logical
construction of the world 234
8. 1983 postscript: The problem of historical evidence 241
Peirce, Malinowski and the emergence of semiotic
anthropology 260
1. Prologue 260
2. "Rivers is the Rider Haggard of anthropology ; I shall be
the Conrad." 265
3. "Dürkheim reduced to Behaviouristic psychology" 269
4. "Mr. Malinowski, meet Mr. Peirce!" 272
5. Synchronic functionalism and the semiotics of history 277
6. Syntactics, semantics, and pragmatics 281
7. A puzzling gap 284
8. Contextualism in historical perspective 286
9. The semiology and/or semiotics of culture 291
10. Is there a Chicago dogma that cultures are systems
of symbols and meanings? 296
11. A trial summary and conclusion 302
Notes 309
References 325
Index 375