The Semiotics of the COVID-19 Pandemic

The strength of this text lies in its ability to furnish a thorough explanatory framework for cultural semiotic perspectives on the Covid-19 pandemic. It is accompanied by a broad range of analyses, equally extensive, which substantiate the analytical methodologies and theoretical foundations guiding the research. -- Claudio Paolucci, University of Bologna, Italy This is semiotics at work in the service of the community: no wandering speculations on signs but a book grounded in the recent past, that addresses real problems, helps us understand them, and prepares us to confront future pandemics. This book brilliantly demonstrates the relevance of semiotics for devising comprehensive policies that take into account the human craving for meaning. * Paul Bouissac, Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto, Canada * Pandemics not only illuminate aspects of human weakness and fragility, but also motivate reappraisals of the world, which, in turn, impact social mindsets. Plagues have always presented a choice—return to the status quo or reinvent the world. They also activate mechanisms of denial and other rhetorical-semiotic strategies. This book by Barreneche takes into the heart of those strategies, dissecting them into their meaning-making components, which allows us to understand better why so many were blamed even as they lost their lives. This is a very important book. It is required reading--new pandemics are just around the corner. * Marcel Danesi, Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto, Canada *