International Conference on 'Semiotics of the Circus'

From April 15th - 17th 2015 the first German conference on Semiotics of the Circus took place in Münster. The cooperation between the GS PoL and the Cirque Buffon brought together scholars from all over the world.
The German magazine "Frankfurter Rundschau" interviewed GS PoL doctoral candidate and organizer of the conference Franziska Trapp in their 49th issue.

Find the interview here (German only) and visit the official website for the project here!

The project Zirkus | Wissenschaft aims at establishing the Circus as an object of cultural studies, something which in Germany has been so far largely unexplored. For this purpose, the conference wants to bring together scholars from all over the world to create an interdisciplinary network which then offers
an opportunity for intense scientific exchange, support for ongoing research projects and a possible initiation for further plans.

Semiotics of the Circus focuses on how and under which conditions meaning is produced and transmitted in the so called New Circus, and in which way this depends on the construction of meaning in traditional circus performances. Semiotics, the theory of meaning creation which analyses the use of signs and the different kinds of sign processes, will help to provide answers to these initial questions.The conference centered around three topics:

1. Semiotics of the Traditional Circus
2. Semiotics of the New Circus
3. Possibilities of analysing New Circus Performances