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Dr Piotr Sadowski M.Phil. (Warsaw), Ph.D. (Warsaw) Visiting Research Fellow

Research and Teaching Interests

My teaching has focused on medieval and Renaissance literature, while my research interests have also included systems theory of literature, linguistic iconicity, early German cinema, and visual semiotics. My latest book, Systemic Semiotics (Bloomsbury, 2022) discusses the human mind, language, and visual arts in the light of systems theory of communication grounded in cognitive and evolutionary sciences. I am currently pursuing research topics relating to metatheatre in Shakespeare’s plays.

Selected Publications

Books

Systemic Semiotics: A Deductive Study of Communication and Meaning. London: Bloomsbury, 2022.

The Semiotics of Light and Shadows: Modern Visual Arts and Weimar Cinema. London: Bloomsbury, 2018.

From Interaction to Symbol: A Systems View of the Evolution of Signs and Communication. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2009.

Dynamism of Character in Shakespeare’s Mature Tragedies, Newark: University of Delaware Press/London: Associated University Presses, 2004.

Gender and Literature: A Systems Study, Lanham-New York-Oxford: University Press of America, 2001.

Systems Theory as an Approach to the Study of Literature: Origins and Functions of Literature, Lewiston-Queenston-Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1999.

The Knight on his Quest: Symbolic Patterns of Transition in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Newark: Delaware University Press/London: Associated University Presses, 1996.

Book Chapters

"In the Kingdom of Shadows: Towards a cognitive definition of photographic media", in: Operationalizing Iconicity, eds., Pamela Perniss, Olga Fischer, Christina Ljungberg, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2020: 229-241.

"Between index and icon: Towards the semiotics of the cast shadow", in: From Variation to Iconicity: Festschrift for Olga Fischer, eds., Anne Bannink, Wim Honselaar, Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Pegasus, 2016: 331-346.

“The iconic indexicality of photography”, in: Semblance and Signification, eds., Pascal Michelucci, Olga Fischer, Christina Ljungberg, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2011: 355-368.

“Macbeth”, in: Harold Bloom, ed., Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Bloom’s Modern Critical Interpretations, New York: Blooms Literary Criticism, 2010: 165-178.

“From signal to symbol: Towards a systems typology of linguistic signs”, in: From Sign to Signing: Iconicity in Language and Literature 3, eds., Wolfgang G. Müller, Olga Fischer, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2003: 411-424.

“Sound-Symbolic Vocabulary of Light in Pearl”, in: Middle English from Tongue to Text, eds. Peter J. Lucas/Angela M. Lucas, Frankfurt am Main: Europäischer Verlag der Wissenschaften, 2002: 35-42.

"The Sound as an Echo to the Sense: the Iconicity of English gl- Words", in: The Motivated Sign, eds, Olga Fischer, Max Nänny, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2001: 69-88.

Articles

"'Do it not with poison': Iago and the killing of Desdemona", Shakespeare Quarterly, vol. 71, Issue 3-4 (Fall-Winter 2020): 242-255.

"'Foul, strange and unnatural': Poison as a murder weapon in English Renaissance drama", Mosaic, an Interdisciplinary Critical Journal, 53.3 (September 2020): 139-154.

“Once a villain always a villain: Edmund’s ‘reformation’ in King Lear, 5.3.241-2”, Studies Arts and Humanities, Vol. 1, No. 1 (2015): 5-13.

“Androgyny and (near) perfect marriage: A systems view of the genders of Leopold and Molly Bloom,” Style, vol. 44, Nos. 1-2 (Spring/Summer 2010): 140-162.

“Oscar Wilde, morality and cybernetics,” Beyond Philology. An International Journal of Linguistics, Literary Studies and English Language Teaching, No. 4 (2007): 173-191.

“A Systems Model of the Evolution of Literary Paradigms”, Journal of Literary Semantics 1 (2002): 19-36.

“Psychological Configurations and Literary Characters: A Systems View”, Journal of Literary Semantics, 29 (2000): 105-122.

“Spenser’s ‘golden squire’ and the ‘golden Meane’: Numbers and Proportions in Book II of The Faerie Queene”, Spenser Studies, XIV (2000): 107-131.

“Literature as Interaction: A Systems Model of Literary Composition and Reception”, The Ukrainian Society for the Study of English Messenger, vol.1, Autumn 2000: 80-86.