CRT 200 — Introduction to Semiotics
This course introduces students to the field of semiotics, or the study of signs. Students will be exposed to an array of topics, such as the relationship between signs and meaning, the creations and functions of structures. the performative nature of signs, the fictions and imaginings of language, the cultural reproduction of signs of oppression and privilege, and the development of linguistic and non-linguistic code (e.g., emoji). Students will examine key scholarship in the fields of semiotics (e.g., Saussure, Pierce, Barthes, Eco, as well as more contemporaryscholars) and understand historic, contemporary, and emerging debates in the field. Special emphasis is on teaching students to employ semiotics as a lens to analyze an array of signs, codes, and related phenomena employed in their social worlds and/or communities of practice.