Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities

Dr Paul Cobley

BA (Hons) History, MA American Studies, PhD

Professor of Semiotics and Communications

Teaching

Reading Media Texts; History of Mass Media; Communication Theory.

PhD students

5 complete: currently supervising 9

Research interests

Semiotics (including semiotics of nature and semiotics of culture), the work of Thomas A. Sebeok, subjectivity, communication theory (history and applications), narrative, genre theory, popular fiction in print, film and television (particularly the thriller genre). Currently working on the following books Contemporary Semiotics (Mouton de Gruyter); The Cultural Implications of Biosemiotics (Springer); The Semiotics of Paranoia: Re-contextualizing the Subject of the Thriller (forthcoming).

Books

  • Introducing Semiotics (formerly Semiotics for Beginners in Britain) (Icon Books, 1997; ISBN 1840460733 - illustrations by Litza Jansz)
  • The American Thriller: Generic Innovation and Social Change in the 1970s (Palgrave, 2000; ISBN 033377690)
  • Narrative (New Critical Idiom series, Routledge, 2001, 267 pp.; ISBN 0415212634)
  • ed., The Communication Theory Reader (Routledge, 1996; ISBN 0415147174)
  • ed. The Routledge Companion to Semiotics and Linguistics (Routledge, 2001; ISBN 0415243149)
  • ed. Communication Theories 4 volumes (Critical Concepts series, Routledge; 2006; ISBN 0415331978)
  • ed. Realism for the 21st Century: A John Deely Reader (University of Scranton Press, 2009)
  • ed. The Routledge Companion to Semiotics (Routledge, 2009; ISBN 978-0-415-44073-8)
  • (with Adam Briggs) ed. The Media: An Introduction (Longman, 1997; ISBN 0582277981)
  • (with Adam Briggs) ed. The Media: An Introduction 2nd edn (Longman, 2002; ISBN 0582423465)
  • (with Daniele Albertazzi) ed. The Media: An Introduction 3rd edn. (Pearson, 2009)
  • ed. (with John Deely, Kalevi Kull and Susan Petrilli) “Semiotics Continues to Astonish”: Thomas A. Sebeok and the Doctrine of Signs, (de Gruyter Mouton, 2011: ISBN 978-3-11-025319-1)
  • ed. (with Torkild Thellefsen and Bent Sørensen) From First to Third via Cybersemiotics: A Festschrift Honouring Professor Søren Brier on the Occasion of his 60th Birthday (Scandinavian Book, 2011; ISBN 978-87-7071-028-3)

Journal articles

  • 'Throwing out the baby: populism and active audience theory' Media, Culture and Society 16: 677-687 (1994; ISSN 0163-4437)
  • 'John Huston's Freud' Projections (USA) 3 (9) (1995)
  • 'Self-analysis: some problems in psychoanalytic approaches to popular culture' Free Associations 38: 297-309 (September 1996; ISSN 0267 0887)
  • 'Signs of nation: reading the narrative of seventies America' ISI Congress Papers: Plenary Lectures and Sections (ISI, 2001; ISBN 951-98654-2-X)
  • 'Analysing narrative genres' Sign Systems Studies 29 (2): 479-502 (2001; ISSN 1406-4243)
  • 'The semiotics of paranoia: the thriller, abduction and the self' Semiotica 148 (1/4): 317-336 (2004; ISSN 0037-1998); reprinted as 'Semiotics, paranoia, the self' in M. Danesi and A. Iannucci eds., Semiotics of Language and Writing (Atwood Publishing; in press)
  • '"To be means to communicate"' Subject Matters 1 (1): 29-46 (2004; ISSN 1742-3775)
  • 'Marketing the "glocal" in narratives of national identity' Semiotica 150 (1/4): 1-30 (2004; ISSN 0037-1998); also published in Estonian Institutes? (forthcoming)
  • 'How to be evil' Subject Matters 1 (2): 47-66 (2004; ISSN 1742-3775)
  • ‘Semioethics, voluntarism and antihumanism’ New Formations 62: 44-60 (Autumn, 2007; ISSN 1905007574)
  • ‘"It’s a fine line between safety and terror": crime and anxiety re-drawn in Spooks’ Film International 7 (2): 36-45 (2009; ISSN 1651-6826)
  • (with Anti Randviir) ‘What is sociosemiotics?’ Sociosemiotica Special double issue of Semiotica 173 (1-2):1-367 (2009; ISSN 0037-1998)
  • (with Nick Haeffner) ‘Digital cameras and domestic photography’ Visual Communication 8 (2) 123-146 (2009; ISSN 1470-3572)
  • (with Adam Briggs) '"I like my shit sagged": youth, black musics and fashion' Youth Studies 2 (3): 337-352 (October 1999; ISSN 1367-6261)
  • ‘The cultural implications of biosemiotics’ Biosemiotics 3 (2): 225-244 (2010; ISSN 1875-1342)
  • ‘Cybersemiotics and human modelling’ Entropy 12: 2045-2066 (2010: ISSN 1099-4300; available at http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/12/9/2045/pdf)
  • ‘Mythbusting’ Language Sciences 33: 511-6 (2011: ISBN 0388-0001) DOI: 10.1016/j.langsci.2011.04.006
  • ‘Motivation and interest’ The American Journal of Semiotics, 26 (1-4): 3-15 (2011: ISSN 9770277712005)

Articles in books

  • 'The specific regime of verisimilitude in the thriller' in I. Rauch and G. Carr eds. Synthesis in Diversity: Proceedings of the 5th Congress of the IASS (Mouton de Gruyter, 1997; ISBN 3110122235)
  • 'Leave the Capitol' in R. Sabin ed., Punk Rock: So What? (Routledge, 1999; ISBN 0415170303)
  • (Abridged version anthologised in A. Tomasino ed., Music and Culture Pearson, 2004; ISBN 0-321-19483-7)
  • '"Who loves ya, baby?" Kojak and the Great Society' in A. Gough-Yates and W. Osgerby eds., Tough Guys, Smooth Operators and Foxy Chicks: Analysing the TV Action Series (Routledge, 2001, pp. 53-68; ISBN 041522621X)
  • '"Justifiable paranoia": reading the politics of conspiracy in 1970s America' in X. Mendik ed., Shocking Cinema of the '70s (Noir, 2002; ISBN 0953656446)
  • 'Semiotics, closure and technologies of narrative communication' in T. J. Prewitt and J. Deely eds., Semiotics 2002 pp. 259-287 (Legas, 2003; ISBN 1894508475)
  • 'Abduction revisited: the thriller and the self' in S. Petrilli and P. Calefato eds., Logica, Dialogica, Ideologica: I Segni tra Funzionalità ed Eccedenza (Mimesis, 2003: ISBN 888483 1628)
  • 'Objectivity and immanence in genre theory' in G. Dowd, L. Stevenson and J. Strong eds., Genre Matters: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Intellect, 2005, pp. 41-54; ISBN 1841501077)
  • ‘Barthes’ sign theory in Anglophone media and cultural studies’ in A. Ponzio, P. Calefato and S. Petrilli eds., Con Roland Barthes alle sorgenti del senso (Meltemi, 2006; ISBN 8883534581)
  • ‘Semioethics and anti-humanism’ in S. Petrilli ed., Comunicazione, Interpretazione, Traduzione (Mimesis, 2007; ISBN 9788884834546)
  • ‘A brief note on dialogue’ in S. Petrilli ed., Philosophy of Language as the Art of Listening: On Augusto Ponzio’s Scientific Research (Edizioni dal Sud, 2007; ISBN 88575530653)
  • ‘Communication and verisimilitude in the 18th century’ in K. Agawu and D. Mirka eds., Communication in 18th Century Music (Cambridge University Press, 2008; ISBN-10: 0521888298)
  • ‘Signifiers and subjects’ S. Petrilli ed., Approaches to Communication: Trends in Global Communication Studies (Atwood Publishing, 2008; ISBN-13: 978-1-891859-75-5)
  • ‘Time, feeling and abduction: towards a new theory of narrative’ in Deely, J. and Sbrocchi, L. eds. Semiotics 2008 pp. 858-68 (Legas, 2009; ISBN 978897493144)
  • (with Adam Briggs) 'Designing successful HIV awareness strategies' in J. Palmer and M. Dodson eds., Design and Aesthetics: A Reader (Routledge, 1996; ISBN 0415072336)
  • (with Anti Randviir) ‘Sociosemiotics’ in Cobley (ed) The Routledge Companion to Semiotics (Routledge, 2009; ISBN 0415440734)
  • ‘Semiotics’ in B. Clarke and M. Rossini eds., The Routledge Companion to Literature and Science (Routledge 2010; ISBN 978-0-415-49525-7), pp. 396-406.
  • ‘The paranoid style in narrative: the anxiety of storytelling after 9/11’ in M.-L. Ryan and M. Grishakova eds., Intermediality and Storytelling (de Gruyter, 2010; ISBN 978-3-11-023773-3) pp. 99-121
  • ‘Sebeok’s panopticon’ in Cobley, P., Deely, J., Kull, K. and Petrilli, S. (eds.) “Semiotics Continues to Astonish”: Thomas A. Sebeok and the Doctrine of Signs, (de Gruyter Mouton, 2011: ISBN 978-3-11-025319-1),pp. 85-114
  • ‘Observerhip: the view from semiotics’ in Thellefsen, T., Sørensen, B. and Cobley, P. (eds.) From First to Third via Cybersemiotics: A Festschrift Honouring Professor Søren Brier on the Occasion of his 60th Birthday (Scandinavian Book, 2011; 978-87-7071-028-3)
  • ‘Verisimilitude and the literary: crime fiction, criticism and the attempt to escape marginality’ in R. Kuncheva (ed.) Marginality in/of the Literature, (Boyan Penev. 2011, ISBN 978-954-8712-76-7).
  • (with Nick Haeffner) ‘Narrative supplements’ in R. Page and B. Thomas eds., New Narratives: Theory and Practice (University of Nebraska Press, 2011; ISBN 978-0-8032-1786-7)

Journal editorship

Founding editor, Subject Matters (co-edited with members of 'Communications and Subjectivity'; ISSN 1742-3775; 2004-present)

Member of editorial collective of Social Semiotics (Routledge ISSN 1035-0330; with Terry Threadgold, Judith Pryor, Radhika Mohanram and David Machin, 2004-present).

Associate editor, Cybernetics and Human Knowing (Imprint, ISSN 0907-0877, 2007-present).

Book series editorship

Journal guest editorship

  • Semiotics and Popular Culture Special issue of International Journal of Applied Semiotics 6 (1) (2008)
  • (with Anti Randviir) Sociosemiotica Special double issue of Semiotica 173 (1-2):1-367 (2009; ISSN 0037-1998)
  • (with Peter Schulz) Subjectivity Special issue of Semiotica 173 (3-4): 369-55 (2009; ISSN 0037-1998)

Editorial Board Membership

  • Editorial Board, Chinese Semiotic Studies (2009-present)
  • Editorial Board, Biosemiotics (2010-present)
  • Editorial Board, Semiotica (2004-present)
  • Editorial Board, Signs (2006-present)
  • Editorial Board, Sign Systems Studies (2008-present)
  • Consulting Editor, Cybernetics and Human Knowing (2006-2007)
  • Advisory Editorial Board Member for Encyclopedia of Media and Communication (M. E. Sharpe, 2009)
  • Editorial Board Member for Encyclopedic Dictionary of Semiotics (Mouton de Gruyter, 2009)

Conference organization

  • 'Nonverbal arts; verbal discourses' conference, London Metropolitan University, May 2003 (featuring Adrian Forty, Richard Appignanesi, Juliet Steyn and Brian Ingram)
  • 'The necessity of artspeak', the '2nd Nonverbal arts; verbal discourses' conference, London Metropolitan University, May 2004 (featuring Roy Harris, Danuta Mirka and Lesley Stevenson)
  • 'Biosemiotics: the new challenge' conference, March 2005 (featuring Jesper Hoffmeyer, Kalevi Kull and Søren Brier)
  • 'The creative mind', the '3rd Nonverbal arts; verbal discourses' conference, London Metropolitan University, May 2005 (featuring Margaret Boden, Dario Martinelli and Wendy Wheeler)
  • 'Media studies, the new universities and the cutting edge'', the '4th Nonverbal arts; verbal discourses' conference, London Metropolitan University, May 2006 (featuring John Beynon, Ros Brunt and Dorothy Hobson)
  • ‘Digital domestic photography’, the ‘5th Nonverbal arts; verbal discourses’ conference, London Metropolitan University, May 2007 (featuring Don Slater, Annette Kuhn, Andy Minnion and Stephen Bull)
  • ‘Edward Cooper - A Life in Castles’, the ‘6th Nonverbal arts; verbal discourses’ conference, London Metropolitan University, May 2008 (featuring Francisco Bautista, Stephen Bayley, Javier Lopez-Martin and Edward Cooper)

Professional positions

  • Vice-President, International Association for Semiotic Studies (elected 2009)
  • Chair of panel of judges for Semiotica/Mouton d’Or Award (2002, 2012; panel member 2001-2002; panel member 2010-11)
  • UK Executive Committee member, International Association for Semiotic Studies (IASS) (1999-present)
  • Member of the International Advisory Board for the Collaborative MA Program in Semiotics at the University of Toronto (2000-2008)
  • Fellow of the International Communicology Institute (2005-present)
  • International Advisory Board Member, CYBERCOM (University of Copenhagen 2010-present)
  • Executive Board Member of the International Society for Biosemiotic Studies (2011-present)