The Soviet Empire of Signs: A Social and Intellectual History of the Tartu School of Semiotics

382 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2005.As such, the Tartu School stands as a revealing case for understanding the informal public sphere, subversive practices and myths, as well as patterns of elite struggles in Soviet academia and society. Beyond having purely historical significance, the findings of this dissertation have implications for understanding post-Soviet culture and politics of science and intellectual elites. By adopting a "symmetrical" perspective on science and society, this study develops a theoretical and practical critique of reductionist approaches, especially strong in the field of Soviet and Russian studies. Finally, by making comparisons and tracing interactions between Soviet and Western scholarship, this history of the Tartu School adds a comparative and transnational edge to contemporary sociology of knowledge and science studies.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD