Signs and Society: Further Studies in Semiotic Anthropology

280 Pages·2016·7.4 MB·English

by  Richard J. Parmentier

SIGNS and SOCIETY
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SIGNS a nd S OCIET Y
Further Studies in Semiotic Anthropology
Richard J. Parmentier
Indiana University Press
Bloomington and Indianapolis
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
© 2016 by Richard J. Parmentier
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or
by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association
of American University Presses’ Resolution on Permissions
constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
∞ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum
requirements of the American National Standard for Information
Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials,
ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Cataloging information is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-0-253-02481-7 (cloth)
ISBN 978-0-253-02496-1 (paperback)
ISBN 978-0-253-02514-2 (ebook)
1 2 3 4 5 22 21 20 19 18 17
For Nancy Felson
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Part I: Foundations of Peircean Semiotics 1
1 Semiotic Anthropology 3
2 Charles S. Peirce 24
3 Representation, Symbol, and Semiosis: Signs of a Scholarly
Collaboration 36
4 Peirce and Saussure on Signs and Ideas in Language 42
5 Troubles with Trichotomies: Reflections on the Utility of Peirce’s
Sign Trichotomies for Social Analysis 48
6 Semiotic Degeneracy of Social Life: Prolegomenon to a Human
Science of Semiosis 63
Part II: Critical Commentaries and Reviews 81
7 Representing Semiotics in the New Millennium 83
8 The World Has Changed Forever: Semiotic Reflections on the
Experience of Sudden Change 101
9 Description and Comparison of Religion 107
10 It’s About Time: On the Semiotics of Temporality 121
11 Anthropological Encounters of a Semiotic Kind 127
12 Two Marxes: Evolutionary and Critical Dimensions of
Marxian Social Theory 136
Part III: Comparative Perspectives on Semiosis 161
13 Money Walks, People Talk: Systemic and Transactional
Dimensions of Palauan Exchange 163
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14 Representing Transcendence: The Semiosis of Real Presence /
With Massimo Leone 192
15 The “Savvy Interpreter”: Performance and Interpretation in
Pindar’s Victory Odes / With Nancy Felson 208
References 239
Index 265
Acknowledgments
T
he essays in this volume were all written while I was a member of the Depart-
ment of Anthropology at Brandeis University, and so I first thank my departmen-
tal colleagues who over the past quarter-century have made our hallway such a
warm and supportive academic home. I have been fortunate to have had expert
critical feedback on these essays by scholars from many different disciplines and
institutions, especially Brigitte Miriam Bedos-Rezak, Stéphane Breton, Ward
Goodenough, Nina Kammerer, Paul Kockelman, Kyung-Nan Koh, Janet McIn-
tosh, Kathryn Morgan, Ryo Morimoto, June Nash, Sally Ann Ness, Nigel Nich-
olson, Susan Petrilli, Frank Reynolds, Peter W. Rose, Benson Saler, and Michael
Silverstein. I particularly thank Nancy Felson and Massimo Leone, fellow mem-
bers of the Editorial Board of Signs and Society, who coauthored two of these
essays and kindly agreed to have them reprinted here. I gratefully acknowledge
the support of Susan Birren, dean of Arts and Sciences at Brandeis, who approved
my sabbatical leave for 2015–2016, which made possible the completion of two
of these essays and the preparation of the volume. I also thank Asif Agha and
Michael Silverstein, who replaced me as editor of Signs and Society during my
sabbatical.
The chapters in this volume have been revised from their original presenta-
tion and publication forms and are reprinted here with permission.

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