New Releases by Umberto Eco

Brother William of Baskerville is sent to investigate charges of heresy against Franciscan monks at a wealthy Italian abbey but finds his mission overshadowed by seven bizarre murders. A monk poisons the pages of the scandalous book Poetics by Aristotle; when anyone licks his fingers to turn the pages, they ingest the poison.

How has the Western world responded in the past to repeated claims that the end of the world is nigh? How do different religions understand what is ment by the end of the world? What have science and philosophy got to say about the end of time? Why do people suffer? What is hell? Is time cyclical or linear? These are just a few of the questions tackled by Umberto Eco, Stephen Jay Gould, Jean Carriere and Jean-Paul Delumeau in a series of conversations. Mixing the religious with the profane and the deeply profound with the humorous, the book explores anything and everything from the concept of time as embedded in language to the reasons why war become an industrialized phenomenon in the 20th century.

Een door drie redacteuren van een Milanese uitgeverij bedacht occult complot achter de wereldgeschiedenis, dat aanvankelijk een middel tot amusement was, wordt een bedreiging voor lichaam en geest.

L''anti Robinson Cruso?︠ Un roman dans lequel Eco le linguiste vient prt̊er main forte ̉Eco le romancier. Le hřos est un intellectuel, fils de hobereau pim̌ontais, naugrag ̌en 1643 face ̉une des l̋es de l''archipel des Fidji, qui cherche ̉comprendre le monde. Selon Pierre Lepape, l''auteur a invent ̌une nouvelle forme de roman historique qui trouve ses fondements dans l''histoire culturelle et trac ̌une vaste fresque de l''Europe baroque. Pour le traducteur ce roman-encyclopďie est aussi un roman de formation, d''espionnage et d''amour. [SDM].

“Impishly witty and ingeniously irreverent” essays on topics from cell phones to librarians, by the author of The Name of the Rose and Foucault’s Pendulum (The Atlantic Monthly). A cosmopolitan curmudgeon the Los Angeles Times called “the Andy Rooney of academia”—known for both nonfiction and novels that have become blockbuster New York Times bestsellers—Umberto Eco takes readers on “a delightful romp through the absurdities of modern life” (Publishers Weekly) as he journeys around the world and into his own wildly adventurous mind. From the mundane details of getting around on Amtrak or in the back of a cab, to reflections on computer jargon and soccer fans, to more important issues like the effects of mass media and consumer civilization—not to mention the challenges of trying to refrigerate an expensive piece of fish at an English hotel—this renowned writer, semiotician, and philosopher provides “an uncanny combination of the profound and the profane” (San Francisco Chronicle). “Eco entertains with his clever reflections and with his unique persona.” —Kirkus Reviews Translated from the Italian by William Weaver

Daphne - De las cosas de la guerra en el Monferrato - El serrallo de los estupores - El laberinto del mundo - Gran arte de la luz y la sombra - El anteojo de larga vista aristotélico - Las pasiones del alma - Discurso de armas y letras - Declaración y uso del reloj - Curiosidades inauditas - Espejo de navegantes - La paloma naranjada - Origen de las novelas - De la enfermedad de amor o melancolía erótica - Idea de un príncipe político Mundos subterráneos - Monólogo sobre la pluralidad de los mundos - El viaje entretenido - La eternidad consejera - Sobre la naturaleza y lugar del infierno - Itinerario estático celeste.

Presents four theories describing the limits of literary interpretation, challenging "the cancer of uncontrolled interpretation" that diminishes the meaning and the basis of communication. -- Back cover.

An erudite and witty collection of Umberto Eco''s essays on mass culture from the 1960s through the 1980s, including major pieces which have not been translated into English before. The discussion is framed by opposing characterizations of current intellectuals as apocalyptic and opposed to all mass culture, or as integrated intellectuals, so much a part of mass culture as to be unaware of serving it. Organized in four main parts, "Mass Culture: Apocalypse Postponed", "Mass Media and the Limits of Communication", "The Rise and Fall of Counter-Cultures", and "In Search of Italian Genius", Eco looks at a variety of topics and cultural productions, including the world of Charlie Brown, distinctions between highbrow and lowbrow, the future of literacy, Chinese comic strips, whether countercultures exist, Fellini''s Ginger and Fred, and the Italian genius industry.

Playful parodies by the author of The Name of the Rose and Foucault''s Pendulum. Here, Eco pokes fun at the oversophisticated, overacademic, and overintellectual, and along the way makes penetrating comments about our modern mass culture and the elitist avant-garde in art in criticism.

This book brings together some of the most distinguished figures currently at work in philosophy, literary theory and criticism to debate the limits of interpretation.

Drei Mailänder Verlagslektoren, die beruflich ständig über okkulte Wissenschaften, Geheimbünde und kosmische Komplotte lesen müssen, stoßen auf ein äußerst rätselhaftes Dokument aus dem 14. Jahrhundert. Darin ist von alle 120 Jahre wiederkehrenden Zusammenkünften der ''36 Unbekannten'', der Nachfahren der mysteriösen Tempelritter, die Rede. Die drei Spötter stürzen sich in das Labyrinth der Geheimlehren. Spielerisch erdenken sie eine gigantische Verschwörung. Aber dann merken sie, daß jemand ihre Phantasien ernst nimmt. Und der schreckt offenbar auch vor Mord nicht zurück.

This book is significant for its concept of "openness"--the artist''s decision to leave arrangements of some constituents of a work to the public or to chance--and for its anticipation of two themes of literary theory: the element of multiplicity and plurality in art, and the insistence on literary response as an interaction between reader and text.

By the author of The Name of the Rose, these essays, written over the last 20 years and culled from newspapers and magazines, explore the rag-bag of modern consciousness. Eco considers a wide range of topics, from Superman and Casablanca, Federico Fellini and Michelangelo Antonioni, Jim Jones and mass suicide, and Woody Allen, to holography and waxworks, pop festivals and football, and not least the social and personal implications of tight jeans.

Discusses the differences between "open" and "closed" texts, or, texts that actively involve the reader and texts that evoke a limited, predetermined response from the reader. -- Back cover.

" . . . the greatest contribution to [semiotics] since the pioneering work of C. S. Peirce and Charles Morris." —Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism " . . . draws on philosophy, linguistics, sociology, anthropology and aesthetics and refers to a wide range of scholarship . . . raises many fascinating questions." —Language in Society " . . . a major contribution to the field of semiotic studies." —Robert Scholes, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism " . . . the most significant text on the subject published in the English language that I know of." —Arthur Asa Berger, Journal of Communication Eco''s treatment demonstrates his mastery of the field of semiotics. It focuses on the twin problems of the doctrine of signs—communication and signification—and offers a highly original theory of sign production, including a carefully wrought typology of signs and modes of production.