Abstract
‘Signs make difference.’ ‘Difference makes signs.’ These two statements on the relation between ‘signs’ and ‘difference’ play an important role in the national politics and in the relationships among Nations. However, contrary to initial impressions, the two propositions are neither symmetrical nor reciprocal. In the first statement, the term ‘difference’ merely indicates a state, while in the second case it also indicates a process. In the first statement, the term ‘difference’ merely indicates an identity, while in the second case it also indicates a relation of alterity. This paper discusses the politic conception of the Nation as Difference-Identity or Difference alterity, i.e., a difference non-indifferent to the other Nations.
About the author
Susan Petrilli (b. 1954) is Associate Professor of Semiotics at the University of Bari, and works at the Department of Linguistic Practices and Text Analysis, at the same University 〈s.petrilli@lingue.uniba.it〉. Her principal research interests include sign theory, subject theory, theory of meaning and language, communication theory, problems of ideology, translation theory. Her recent major publications include Semiotics Unbounded. Interpretive Routes in the Open Network of Signs (with A. Ponzio, 2005); Percorsi della semiotica (2005); The Semiotic Animal (with A. Ponzio and J. Deely, 2005); and Tesi per il futuro anteriore della semiotica (with C. Caputo, 2006).
© Walter de Gruyter
