Tag Archives: structuralism

Scales of Lady Justice December 13

Is Popular Culture influencing our perception of Justice?

Much of 2014 has been dominated by stories of Justice, Law and Injustice. If popular culture is a reflection of society and culture, what do the changing storylines of law-and-crime suggest about how we feel about Justice? Do these stories influence the way that we see our own societies? This can be illustrated by looking at the structures of some of the more successful film and TV shows.

November 18

Some anthropological perspectives on eating: east or west

From an anthropological perspective, food is part of how we identify ourselves and also the cultures we belong to. Food structures our identities, social behaviour and frames our concepts of others. Food is one of the ways we most commonly experience foreign foods. What we don’t eat is as important to what we do in defining who we are. We can look at the similarities and differences between ‘east and western’ cuisines as an illustrative tension of formative cultural identity.

food semiotics October 08

The Semiotics of Cutlery: Eating food symbolically off course.

Hunger is a universal physiological drive but we also take great delight in eating. While cuisines and cooking is astonishingly diverse, cutlery has remained remarkably elementary. While we need to eat, food more broadly is used across individual, social and cultural dimensions to build, share and demarcate our identities. How and what meaning cutlery adds to this semiotic conversation is worth degustation. Cut, Stab and Scoop are how we eat, but what meaning is within these gestures?

Culture Decanted September 13

Cradle to Coffin: A Semiotic Model of Life and Death

There is nothing that influences human behavour as strongly as the power of life and death. It is possible to create a semiotic model that conceptualize how we create meaning on the journey from the womb to the grave.