A series of essays in which Barthes seeks to tear away masks and demystify the signs, signals, gestures and messages through which western society sustains, sells, identifies and yet obscures itself.

An attempt to answer the question, how much do our perceptions of things depend on our cognitive ability and how much on our linguistic resources? Eco undertakes a series of idiosyncratic explorations, starting from the perceived data of common sense, to expound a clear critique of Kant.

The author of The Name of the Rose considers a wide range of topics, from Superman and Casablanca , Federico Fellini and Michelangelo Antonioni, Jim Jones and mass suicide, and Woody Allen, to pop festivals and football, and not least the social and personal implications of tight jeans.

Franciscans in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate. But his delicate mission is overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths. He collects evidence, deciphers secret symbols and digs into the eerie labyrinth of the abbey where extraordinary things are happening under the cover of night.

This novel by the author of The Name of the Rose follows that book's format of a complex intellectual thriller. The plot ranges back and forth through the centuries, full of arcane knowledge, secret societies, love, death, passion and perversion.

Fontana Press. Roland Barthers reissue with new jacket.

The linguistic distillation of Barthes' system of semiology in which the Balzac novella Sarrasine is dissected to uncover layers of meanings and interpretations. Barthes' interpretation of language and meaning lies within the 20th-century structuralist mode, similar to that of Levi-Strauss.

This title concerns the extraordinary historical consequences of errors and fictional inventions.

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Outlines the development of sign study from its classical precursors to contemporary post-structuralism. It identifies the key semioticians and their work and explains the simple concepts behind difficult terms.

Provides an introduction to the key concepts of semiotics. This edition presents examples including computer and mobile phone technology, television commercials and the web. It also covers questions such as: What is a sign? Which codes do we take for granted? How can semiotics be used in textual analysis? And, what is a text?

The language we use when we are in love is not a language we speak, for it is addressed to ourselves and to our imaginary beloved. This book revives beyond the psychological or clinical enterprises which have characterised such researches in our culture - the notion of the amorous subject.

Examines the themes of presence and absence, the relationship between photography and theatre, history and death. This title offers an investigation into the nature of photographs.

Intended for those with no prior knowledege of the subject, this book discuses the nature and development of structure and semiotics. It answers questions raised by the whole 'science of signs' considering what 'reading' and 'writing' involves.

Essays discuss poetry, communication, television, form, aesthetics, bad taste, and art.

Italian literary theorist and novelist Umberto Eco includes nine essays in this title concerning: the general significance of literature; major authors of the Western canon; the poetic qualities of Dante's Paradiso ; the style of the Communist Manifesto ; Joyce's views on language; and more.

From the early Dark Ages to the Renaissance it was widely believed that the language spoken in the Garden of Eden was a perfect language, expressing all possible things, and that all current languages were its decadent descendants. This is an investigation into the history of this idea.