Travel, monsters and taxidermy: the semiotic patterns of gullibility

Early modern travelogues often strove to convey efficacious representations of newly discovered worlds (plants, animals, people, customs, etc.) to an increasingly curious European readership. At the dawn of modernity, the new scientific discourse clashed and frequently blurred with the medieval pass...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Leone, Massimo - Autor/a
Formato: Text publishedVersion Artículo
Lenguaje:Eng
Publicado: Religación. Centro de Investigaciones en Ciencias Sociales Humanidades desde América Latina 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:http://biblioteca.clacso.edu.ar/gsdl/collect/ec/ec-016/index/assoc/D11626.dir/travel-monsters-leone.pdf
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id I16-R122-D11626
record_format dspace
institution Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales
institution_str I-16
repository_str R-122
collection Red de Bibliotecas Virtuales de Ciencias Sociales (CLACSO)
language Eng
topic Semiótica
Iconografía
Retórica narrativa
Relatos de viajeros
spellingShingle Semiótica
Iconografía
Retórica narrativa
Relatos de viajeros
Leone, Massimo - Autor/a
Travel, monsters and taxidermy: the semiotic patterns of gullibility
topic_facet Semiótica
Iconografía
Retórica narrativa
Relatos de viajeros
description Early modern travelogues often strove to convey efficacious representations of newly discovered worlds (plants, animals, people, customs, etc.) to an increasingly curious European readership. At the dawn of modernity, the new scientific discourse clashed and frequently blurred with the medieval passion for monsters, resulting in paradoxical arrangements of words and images. To semioticians, these hybrid texts are extremely precious, for they reveal how symbols, icons, and sometimes also indexes variously combine in relating the unknown to common sense while pleasing the curiosity of readers. The essay concentrates, in particular, on Melchisédech Thévenot’s Relation de divers voyages curieux, a monumental 17th century collection of previous travelogues, which sought to present and often validate the bizarre findings of ancient and medieval explorations through the frame of a modern, pseudoscientific edition. The current reader probably does not believe in the same monsters as the early modern aficionado of travelogues would, yet the public discourse is still grappling with the issue of determining what is true, what is false, and what is a paradoxical mixture of both in the present-day circulation of words, images, and relics.
format Text
publishedVersion
Artículo
author Leone, Massimo - Autor/a
author_facet Leone, Massimo - Autor/a
author_sort Leone, Massimo - Autor/a
title Travel, monsters and taxidermy: the semiotic patterns of gullibility
title_short Travel, monsters and taxidermy: the semiotic patterns of gullibility
title_full Travel, monsters and taxidermy: the semiotic patterns of gullibility
title_fullStr Travel, monsters and taxidermy: the semiotic patterns of gullibility
title_full_unstemmed Travel, monsters and taxidermy: the semiotic patterns of gullibility
title_sort travel, monsters and taxidermy: the semiotic patterns of gullibility
publisher Religación. Centro de Investigaciones en Ciencias Sociales Humanidades desde América Latina
publishDate 2016
url http://biblioteca.clacso.edu.ar/gsdl/collect/ec/ec-016/index/assoc/D11626.dir/travel-monsters-leone.pdf
work_keys_str_mv AT leonemassimoautora travelmonstersandtaxidermythesemioticpatternsofgullibility
bdutipo_str Repositorios
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