Alberto Korda's famous photograph of Che Guevara titled the "Guerrillero Heroico" has been reproduced, modified and remixed countless times since it was taken on March 5, 1960, in Havana, Cuba. This book looks again at this well-known mass-produced image to explore how an image can take on cultural force in diverse parts of the globe and legitimate varying positions and mass action in unexpected global political contexts. Analytically, the book develops a comparative analysis of how images become attached to a range of meanings that are absolutely inseparable from their contexts of use. Addressing the need for a fluid and responsive approach to the study of visual meaning-making, this book relies on multiple methodologies such as semiotics, research-creation, multimodal discourse analysis, ethnography and phenomenology and shows how each method has something to offer toward the understanding of the social and cultural work of images in our globally oriented cultures.

"Discusses the iconic photograph of revolutionary Che Guevara taken in 1960 by Cuban photographer Alberto Korda"--

Ziff offers a revealing look at the incredibly varied ways a 1960s photo and Che Guevara have been appropriated. The image has become an ideal of abstraction, and this text vividly demonstrates the diverse ways in which it has been used.

The global icon is an omnipresent but poorly understood element of mass culture. This book asks why audiences around the world have embraced particular iconic figures, how perceptions of these figures have changed, and what this tells us about transnational relations since the Cold War era. Prestholdt addresses these questions by examining one type of icon: the anti-establishment figure. As symbols that represent sentiments, ideals, or something else recognizable to a wide audience, icons of dissent have been integrated into diverse political and consumer cultures, and global audiences have reinterpreted them over time. To illustrate these points the book examines four of the most evocative and controversial figures of the past fifty years: Che Guevara, Bob Marley, Tupac Shakur, and Osama bin Laden. Each has embodied a convergence of dissent, cultural politics, and consumerism, yet popular perceptions of each reveal the dissonance between shared, global references and locally contingent interpretations. By examining four very different figures, Icons of Dissent offers new insights into global symbolic idioms, the mutability of common references, and the commodification of political sentiment in the contemporary world.

The Diary of Ernesto Che Guevara provide a critical examination of revolutionary ideals, political struggles, and the transformative journey of a key figure in 20th-century history. Guevara documents his experiences during the Cuban revolution, capturing the challenges, victories, and moral dilemmas faced by the guerilla fighters. Through these writings, Che reflects not only on the political and social upheavals of the time but also on his evolving vision for a just and egalitarian society. The diaries emphasize the complexities of leadership, the personal sacrifices required in the fight for liberation, and the constant tension between ideological conviction and human frailty. Che's observations offer insights into the nature of power, the struggles for freedom, and the moral ambiguity inherent in violent revolution. His reflections on comradeship, strategy, and the political landscape have inspired countless movements and continue to resonate with readers who grapple with questions of justice and resistance. Since its publication, The Diary of Ernesto Che Guevara has been widely recognized for its candid portrayal of revolution and the personal cost of fighting for a cause. The work has inspired films, documentaries, and numerous academic studies, cementing Che Guevara's image as a symbol of revolutionary struggle and resistance. His detailed accounts serve as both a historical document and a philosophical treatise on the dynamics of rebellion, sacrifice, and the quest for societal change. The work remains relevant today as it explores enduring issues of power, inequality, and the fight for justice. Guevara's diaries invite readers to reflect on the ethical challenges of revolution and the ongoing struggle to balance personal conviction with the demands of collective action.

In Law and the Visual, leading legal theorists, art historians, and critics come together to present new work examining the intersection between legal and visual discourses. Proceeding chronologically, the volume offers leading analyses of the juncture between legal and visual culture as witnessed from the fifteenth to the twenty-first centuries. Editor Desmond Manderson provides a contextual introduction that draws out and articulates three central themes: visual representations of the law, visual technologies in the law, and aesthetic critiques of law. A ground breaking contribution to an increasingly vibrant field of inquiry, Law and the Visual will inform the debate on the relationship between legal and visual culture for years to come.

The X figure is ubiquitous in contemporary culture, but attempts to explain our fixation with X are rare. This book argues that the origins and meanings of X go far beyond alphabets and archetypes to remembered feelings of body movements - movements best typified in the performance of “spread-eagle” as a posture or gesture. These body memories are then projected onto other patterns and dynamics to help us make sense of the world. The argument is accomplished using a blend of insights from linguistic anthropology, cognitive linguistics, rhetoric culture and process semiotics to bring together revealing clues from languages, cultures and thinkers around the world. Chief among the uses and experiences of X are its tendencies to involve us in surprising reversals and blends. In ancient times the X-pattern was discussed as “chiasmus”, a figure which, according to Maurice Merleau-Ponty, informs the most basic elements of our bodily experience, calling into question polarized dichotomies such as subject versus object. Pushed to extremes, presumed opposites like these tend to reverse suddenly. Likewise, blended experiences of our bodily extremities - arms and legs, toes and fingers, hands and feet - provide a plausible source of grounding for unique human abilities like analogy and double-scope conceptual integration. The book illustrates these dynamics by drawing attention to uses of X in history, prehistory and daily life, from sports and advertising to world mythology and languages around the world. The Semiotics of X is the first step towards developing a larger argument on the important but neglected role that chiasmus plays in cognition. It aims to inspire continued exploration on the figure, with the full expectation that chiasmus will become for the 21st century what metaphor became for the 20th century: a revolution in thinking about the way we think.

Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, better known as Augustus, was the first Roman emperor and is one of the most iconic figures in world history. Two thousand years after his death, Augustus remains a strong presence in modern culture. The Semiotics of Caesar Augustus examines the meanings and significances of Augustus in Western literary and popular culture, from the 1960s until the turn of the millennium. Drawing on the theoretical background of semiotics and classical reception studies, Elina Pyy investigates the representation of Augustus in the postmodern novels of Kurt Vonnegut and Christoph Ransmayr, as well as in the genre of historical fiction, and in screen representations from both sides of the Atlantic. Scrutinizing what Caesar Augustus stood for in the postmodern world, and the main factors that influenced (and still influence) the modern reader's interpretation of him, this book is grounded on the premise that the past, being a system of signs based on our culturally shared understanding of them, is continuously created and reconstructed by the modern audience. Arguing that the 'many faces of the emperor' can be considered to be reactions to contemporary cultural, socio-political or emotional needs, The Semiotics of Caesar Augustus shows how his character was recurrently utilized to explain and understand the ways in which the discourses of power, liberty, oppression and humanity operated in the postmodern world.

Shortlisted for the BAAL Book Prize 2017 Emoji have gone from being virtually unknown to being a central topic in internet communication. What is behind the rise and rise of these winky faces, clinking glasses and smiling poos? Given the sheer variety of verbal communication on the internet and English's still-controversial role as lingua mundi for the web, these icons have emerged as a compensatory universal language. The Semiotics of Emoji looks at what is officially the world's fastest-growing form of communication. Emoji, the colourful symbols and glyphs that represent everything from frowning disapproval to red-faced shame, are fast becoming embedded into digital communication. Controlled by a centralized body and regulated across the web, emoji seems to be a language: but is it? The rapid adoption of emoji in such a short span of time makes it a rich study in exploring the functions of language. Professor Marcel Danesi, an internationally-known expert in semiotics, branding and communication, answers the pertinent questions. Are emoji making us dumber? Can they ultimately replace language? Will people grow up emoji literate as well as digitally native? Can there be such a thing as a Universal Visual Language? Read this book for the answers.

Drawing on extensive research over more than two decades, this book focuses on toys and games as resources for play. It analyses their functionalities as well as their symbolic meaning potentials, exemplifying how they are used in different contexts, such as home and preschool, and how these uses are regulated by parental, pedagogic and marketing discourses. Building on the work of semioticians such as Barthes, Baudrillard and Krampen, as well as on the social semiotics of Halliday, Hodge, Kress, and others, the book introduces a framework for the multimodal semiotic analysis of physical objects, and the ways in which they are digitally translated into words, images and sounds. It also introduces a multimodal framework with a focus on designs for and in learning. It then applies these frameworks to a range of toys and games for young children including teddy bears, dolls, construction toys, war toys and digital games. Throughout it shows how the toy and games industry contributes to changing the nature of childhood and the way children learn about the world. Accessibly written, the book will not only be relevant to students and scholars of multimodality and semiotics, but also to early childhood educators and parents of young children.