Semiotics in More Than Human Anthropology

3 credits

This course helps graduate students gain a footing in the literature of (bio-)semiotics, beyond conventional applications within linguistics. It reviews core voices ranging from linguistics, philosophy of mind, cognitive science, archaeology, computer science, anthropology, and other disciplines. Students are expected build on the provided roster of readings with their own discoveries of pertinent sources. This backbone of knowledge will equip students with a conceptual language to describe and analyze animal-, plant-, and landscape-human interactions documented in their own fieldwork. The course focuses on the concept of distributed cognition, which has spread to many disciplines, while paying homage to some of its foundational thinkers.