Article – Jenny Ponzo, Semiotics of Religion (Zeitschrift für Semiotik, 2023)
Jenny Ponzo, “Semiotics of Religion”, Zeitschrift für Semiotik, vol. 44, n. 1-2/2022, August 2023.
Summary. This paper provides an overview of the main research lines developed in the 2000s in Italy in the field of the semiotics of religion, with a focus on the studies carried out at the University of Turin, where religious cultures have provided fertile ground for semiotic reflection in the last few decades. This contribution therefore takes into consideration the texts, signs, and practices that have been the subject of analysis (sacred texts, artworks, material culture, communication strategies, interpretative styles, and rituals) and the related methodologies, as well as the concepts and categories most frequently discussed and utilised, such as the notions of transcendence, mediation, and secularization.
NeMoSanctI is a research project carried out at the University of Turin. It studies how models of sanctity have changed after the Second Vatican Council. To this end, it applies a pioneering methodology based on semiotic theory to a wide corpus of normative, judicial, and narrative texts.
This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 757314).
