Umberto Eco, the Da Vinci Code, and the Intellectual in the Age of Popular Culture - Paperback

by Douglass Merrell (Author)

Chapter One: The Intermediate ThinkerChapter Two: The Intellectual SpeciesChapter Three: A Medievalist in HibernationChapter Four: The Exiled HereticChapter Five: The Art of Adventure: Joyce, Pareyson, and the Open WorkChapter Six: The Gruppo 63 and the Counter-Culture MovementChapter Seven: The Aesthetic Worlds of Superman and Charlie BrownChapter Eight: The Semiotic Species: A Grand Unified Theory of CultureChapter Nine: The Ethics of Interpretation and the Model ReaderChapter Ten: Travels in the Fictional Labyrinth

Back Jacket

This book provides a philosophical overview of Umberto Eco's historical and cultural development as a unique, internationally recognized public intellectual who communicates his ideas to both an academic and a popular audience. It describes Eco's intellectual development from his childhood during World War II and student involvement as a Catholic youth activist and scholar of the Middle Ages, to his early writings on the "openness" of modern works such as Joyce's Finnegans Wake. Merrell also explores Eco's pioneering role in semiotics and his later career as a novelist.

Author Biography

Douglass Merrell completed his PhD in in History on Umberto Eco at the University of Washington in 2000. He has subsequently taught in Rome, Venice, and Padua.