La morte come frontiera semiotica

Francesco Galofaro

doi:10.6092/issn.2036-1602/3262

Death as a semiotic frontier

Authors

Francesco Galofaro CUBE - Ethnosemiotic Centre of Bologna University

PhD in Semiotics, he started working on medicine's epistemology from the times of his doctoral thesis. His researches on the connection between bioethics and cultural identity have been funded by italian National Research Centre (CNR). He wrote a book about the case of Eluana Englaro, a woman in persistent vegetative state. He is now working on the impairments in narrative syntax in the case of chronic pain and schizophrenia. He is a member of CUBE, the Ethnosemiotic centre of Bologna University.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2036-1602/3262

Keywords:

semiotics, death, culture, biopolitics, eterotopia

Abstract

If we try to identify the actual moment of the death, we discover that the semiotic frontier between life and death depends on the considered culture. Society certifies the end of the biologic process through religion, law, medicine, and the respective institutions. Political controversies on death, euthanasia, persistent vegetative state, transplantation, are always controversies on who has the power to decide the meaning connected to death. In order to describe it, the essay represents death as an eterotopic space, which topologically connects a system of values with the topic spaces of everyday life.

References

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Foucault, J.M. (1986), “Of other spaces”, in Diacritics, Vol. 16, n. 1, pp. 22-27

Galofaro, F. (2007), “Interpreting radiograms”, in Working Papers of Urbino University, 363-364-365:40 - 45

Galofaro, F. (2009a), Etica della ricerca medica ed identità culturale europea, CLUEB, Bologna

Galofaro, F. (2009b), Eluana Englaro. La contesa sulla fine della vita, Meltemi, Roma

Hjelmslev, L. (1953), “Prolegomena to a Theory of Language”, International Journal of American Linguistics, I, Indiana University Publ. In Anthropology and Linguistics. Memoir 7 of the IJAL, pp. IV – 92

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Published

2012-06-30

How to Cite

Galofaro, F. (2012). Death as a semiotic frontier. IN_BO. Ricerche E Progetti Per Il Territorio, La Città E l’architettura, 3(4), 279–284. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2036-1602/3262

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Issue

Vol. 3 No. 4 (2012): CONTEMPORARY EVOLUTIONS IN FUNERARY ARCHITECTURE

Section

Architecture, city and society

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