The volume Semiotics of Conflict. A Lotmanian Perspective (TLU Press, 2024), edited by Daniele Monticelli, Merit Maran and Franciscu Sedda, assesses the phenomenon of conflict in dialogue with Juri Lotman’s semiotics of culture. Through theoretical investigations and case studies, the contributing authors  illuminate the semiotic nature of conflict through a Lotmanian lens. While Lotman did not provide a systematic theory of conflict, his ideas on the incompatibility of codes, untranslatability, stereoscopicity, semiotic resistance between communication partners, misunderstanding as conversation in non-identical languages and tension between opposing structural poles inside a semiotic system offer a rich foundation for the understanding of cultural and social conflict.

The volume also contains the first English translations of three essays written by Lotman in the early 1990s, when the collapse of the USSR provoked new hopes as well as new conflicts. The diverse nature of the perspectives developed in the studies gathered here shows that Lotman’s ideas have the theoretical scope and versatility to inform a multifaceted approach to the analysis of conflict as well as providing some much-needed reflection on our current turbulent times.

The volume discusses these matters through innovative contributions by the following authors: Brian James Baer, Cristina Demaria, Laura Gherlone, Eduardo Chávez Herrera, Israel León O’Farrill, Anna Maria Lorusso, Merit Maran, Daniele Monticelli, Mario Panico, Igor Pilshchikov, Pietro Restaneo, Franciscu Sedda, Patrizia Violi, Nicola Zengiaro.

The full edited volume is available for download here.