Editorial Issue 15

Is it a pleasure to introduce Issue 15 of the journal. Contributions include two developed and well argued pieces by two long standing supporters of the journal – Susan Petrilli and Nicoleta Popa Blanariu. It is good to have papers reflecting professional commitments, in education by Haroula Hatzimihail and Ioannis Pantelidis, in cognitive science by Marcus Oliveira and Rosana Pinto, and in visual design by Jacqueline Hill. Oliveira and Pinto, along with Adewale Adelakun and Olusegun Oladosu, and Amalia Nurma Dewi, help fulfil a geographic spread (Brazil, Nigeria and Indonesia respectively) in line with an original goal of the publication.

Greimas and Levinas – Residents of Kaunas. War and Semiotic Theory in the Twentieth Century by Geoffrey Sykes (http://doi.org/10.33234/ssr.9.1)

This paper is the first in a series that will inquire about the status of semiotic theory in the twentieth century. It will address the tacit or unacknowledged influences of war, economics and mass migration, that shape the theory as narrative, and limits claims to its scientific or objective status. This part will focus on the prominent French semiotician Algirdas Julien Greimas, with reference to the IASS 2017 Congress, held at Kaunas Lithuania. It will also mention the eminent thinker Emmanuel Levinas.

Editorial – Passings by Geoffrey Sykes

Fortuitous meetings with three scholars provide the basis for an unusual reflection at the time of their passing. The meeting with Solomon Marcus occurred in Calea Victoria, Bucharest Romania, and a main elegant thoroughfare, lined with embassies, main hotels, galleries, fashion shops, restaurants and museums. Visitors can be surprised by the urban buildings – much of it coming from Parisian inspired construction early in the twentieth century. Yet my meeting with Marcus was surprising in a quite unexpected way.

Desperately Seeking: Semiotic Nomadism in the Twenty First Century by Geoffrey Sykes

I am sitting in the Coluzzi Bar at Sydney airport, regretting the state of flight and fear anxiety that caused me to book in luggage some three hours before my 6pm take off on my carefully prepared, three week three week exodus to Bangkok, Berlin, Finland and Vietnam. I am writing this note in my black and red bordered notebook as if it were intended for some audience at some time, but actually it has only been an hour or less since I decided to start making a journal of this trip at all. Let me explain.