Description: Existential semiotics posits an a priori state of signs; it studies the ways in which signs are fixated into objective entities. Tarasti's work is hermeneutic and phenomenological, with its sources in Husserl, Schutz, Merleau-Ponty, Hegel, Schelling, Kierkegaard, Jaspers, and Heidegger. As a member of the Paris School of Semiotics (and following the lead of A.J. Greimas, in particular), Tarasti is seeking less categorical, less-Cartesian approaches. He sees semiotics in transition, shift, rupture, and flux, something which is "becoming" rather than "being". His theoretical ideas are illustrated with examples from high culture -- painting, music, and -- literature as well as from contemporary media and popular culture, including landscapes, gastronomy, novels, Walt Disney films, and postcolonial practices. Signs are examined in their interdisciplinary as well as their intertextual connections in this thoughtful collection of essays.

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