" The encounter of semiotics with artificial intelligence should not have surprised me: for over twenty-five years I have been teaching a course on. 'Semiotics and Computers'1 in connection with a research program that always had something to do with artificial intelligence, even before the expression was used. And yet, I must confess that I did feel surprised when I learned that a special issue of "Semiotica" was being planned on that very subject, and that I was invited to take (...) part in it. To this end, I need first to indicate how I became involved with semiotics and computers, in the late 1950s. ". (shrink)

No one would think of denying that literary texts lend themselves to “plural” readings, as we say today: the studies collected in this issue are one more proof, as is the title of the collection. Tens of thousands of pages have already been written on Shakespeare and on Montaigne, which does not preclude the enjoyment of those that are offered us here; and the idea would not occur to anyone that this process of re-writing could ever come to an end, (...) aside from the apocalyptic end of all human things, written and unwritten. (shrink)