This journal is fully international in focus, and responds to the promise of semiotics at a foundational level through attention to the arts and religion.
It responds to a perceived need and opportunity to develop a more comprehensive approach to the study of semiotics through practices that have existed from first cultures 60,000 years ago until today. The arts and religion on the one hand can be taken as applications of the established core theory of semiotics, which might for instance come from logic, culture or science. On the other hand arts and religion can be seen as a rich, indeed primordial, even essential, source of sign phenomenon. The ostracism of religion in the modern secular state, and its tertiary institutions, along with the opposition of arts and sciences, have led to sidelining of fields than ccould, according to strong argument on their role, be essential domains for contemporary semiotic study.
Whatever presumptions are made, it is felt that a scholarly approach, layered by meta semiotic categories, will result in an ecumenical basis for religious study, and indeed provide clarity and interdisciplinary understanding. Likewise, careful study of arts, especially multi form practices, will lead to appreciation and understanding.
This appears to be the only journal of its kind focusing on its preferred fields, especially religion and semiotics. The journal does not stop inquiry by authors into their own preferred faith – however this needs to written up in a dispassionate and shared frame that semiotic permits.
The journal allows formal, reviewed articles as well as informal correspondence and viewpoints, interviews and, in the case of the arts, reviews. We will keep in mind that our audience is international – however there is certainly space for fresh writing on the state of the arts today, informed by semiotic perspectives.