FLSE.00.246 loeng 13.10.15

FLSE.00.246 Methodology of the Humanities loeng 2013.10.15

The connection between Jakobson and Tartu.

That is one of the topics we are interested in. Silvi Salupere is most adept on this topic and willing to tell us about it.

Jakobson in 1966 [at Kääriku]
"During a visit to the Soviet Union attended the Twelfth International Congress of Psychology, Moscow, August 4-11; the International Seminar on Speech Production and Speech Perception, Pavlov Institute, Leningrad, August 13-16; the Semiotic Seminar at the University of Tartu, Estonia, August 19-25; the Shota Rustaveli Commemoration, University of Tbilisi, Georgia, Sept. 5. Attended the Colloque international de semiologie, Polish Academy of Science, Kazimierz, Sept. 13-18."

A buzy summer.

In 1973, at the proposal of Juri Lotman, a collective formulation of the principles of this field called 'semiotics of culture' was made. To write these Theses was Lotman's idea. The text was compiled when the group gathered in Uspenskij's apartment in Moscow, at Jugo-Zapadnaja. The authors included the core members of the Tartu-Moscow semiotics school - J. M. Lotman, V. V. Ivanov, V. N. Toporov, A. M. Pjatigorskij, and B. A. Uspenskij. Lotman also wanted to include Roman Jakobson, who worked at that time at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but it is not clear whether this message reached him (Ivanov 1994: 488; 1999: 248; Velmezova, Kull 2011: 300). The Theses were written for the 7th International Congress of Slavists that took place in 1973 in Warsaw. The writing process was rather quick - Uspenskij had to take the text to Warsaw. (Salupere, Torop, Kull 2013: 5) [from the reprint of CS Thesis].

A more reliable source than Mihhail Lotman's spoken word at the summer school.

Lotman's obituary to Jakobson was published in Keel ja Kirjandus (approx. 1983)

Might have to check this out some day.

Jakobson was a life-long romanticist in science and he never got old. He remained a river until the end of his life. "I have read medical works where it is said that being gifted is an illness. In Jakobson's case giftedness is a contagious sickness, because everywhere he went he formed a group (a linguistic circle).

One of these was in New York, which surprised me somewhat.

In the 1950s Lotman reoriented to cybernetics.

That's probably how he acquainted with information and communication theories of the day.

[Remo G. comments that] Jakobson tried to unite Saussure and Peirce through the Stoics, but for them the sign wasn't only (or even primarily) a linguistic sign.

I wish I knew more about this.