Summer 2007
Note from the Executive Director
You should have received an email
announcement of the election for SSA officers. If you have not, and are finding
this notice without email notification, check on your membership and let us
know your current contact. The Nominating Committee has submitted the following
slate of officers to take positions at the 2007 meeting in
For Vice President and President-Elect (2007-8, to serve as President during 2008-9)
Thomas F. Broden (
For the Executive Board (serving from October 2007 through the October 2010)
Deborah Smith-Shank
(Northern
For the Executive Board (serving from October 2007 through the October 2010)
Phyllis Passariello (
All of these candidates have long experience and participation with the Semiotic Society of America with work in their respective disciplines. Members in good standing will receive an email ballot for the Presidential and Executive Board nominations around June 1, 2007. You may vote by returning the email to confirming or oppose the slate; for questions concerning the election contact tprewitt@uwf.edu. Email confirmations will be archived in the SSA office.
NOTE FROM
THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
We will use the page for
announcements and other business and information needs of SSA. Our Summer focus
will be on plans for the 2007 SSA meeting to be held October 4-7 in
I want to encourage everyone to
use the conference hotel. The Sheraton New Orleans is not only
providing a solid venue for the meeting, but our room-night commitment at the
hotel, though modest, is an important element limiting the
costs of the meeting. Making reservations early and staying in the conference
hotel will provide convenience during the meeting, reduce your expenses, and
help the society. The hotel is also very
convenient to the French Quarter and other parts of downtown
If you are organizing any sessions and want to try to expand participation in your session over the whole society, then sent a brief description of the panel you hope to organize. Announcements will be post here until the abstract submission process closes.
SESSION
PARTICIPATION CALLS
Art
of Survival: Transformation, Healing, and Self-Knowledge
Elka Kazmierczak
Southern
I seek to develop understanding
of the significance of art as a source of self-knowledge, healing, and personal
transformation. In this panel, I propose to study relationships between life
experiences, human sensitivity, and creative expression. Creative
self-expression, such as image making, writing, and performance expresses the
need to make sense of life and the universe. It is a method for interpretation:
a way to bridge rationality and emotionality. “Art has been and is an essential
means by which humans develop and extend their consciousness (and
self-consciousness), enabling them to develop special skills, sharpening their
essential faculties, and giving them an increasingly firmer grasp of reality” (Dissanayake, 1998: 67).[1]
This panel will focus on how art transfor
Our sensitivities and experiences form the lens through which we view the new and the unknown. Seeing is influenced—sometimes blinded by our beliefs and expectations. We see others and ourselves through the social and cultural identities societies provide us with the characteristic acts, functions, and moods associated with them (McKinnon, 1994: 20).[2] The outside world and its experiences are never viewed in the same way through the eyes of different people; yet, these experiences can be shared, because of commonalities granted by universals of human nature and participation in culture, giving art its communicative power.
I invite discussion of different
factors governing the use of art for healing and self-knowledge. For example,
many argue that physical experiences are not so easily disclosed
linguistically. Rather that it is corporeality upon which our language is
based. Thus, what is the nature of physical experiences encountered in art
making? How are they classified and accounted for?
For more information
contact Elka Kazmierczak at
elka@elkadesigns.com,
or elka@art4e.org
Morris Opler and the Theory of Themes
Anyone who is interested in participating
in a panel linking the anthropological “theory of themes” of Morris Opler, or other configurationalist
theories of culture, to the semiotic perspective of C.S. Peirce, please contact
The 2004/2005 combined
proceedings volume is finally completed and should appear later this Summer. Meanwhile,
authors should be receiving PDF versions of their individuals
papers which will allow them to print paginated copies of their papers.
Individuals who want to purchase the volumes should contact Legas
Press, 3 Wood Aster Bay,