Advanced Topics in Anthropology (Half-Term): A Guess at the Riddle: Ethnography, Abduction, and Ecologies of Signs

This seminar is a multidisciplinary study of the theory and technique of semiotic analysis of social, cultural, material, technological, affective, and ecological phenomena. The course explores pragmatic applications of semiotics (e.g., semiosis, abduction, and diagrammatic thinking) in ethnographic theorizing. The course offers toolkits for the students to explore the messiness of social, material, affective, and more-than-human lives, environments and abiotic factors, and the complex inter-actions of signs in and through society. The students learn to apply semiotics and experiment with its potential for designing their research projects.