Academic Programs in Semiotics - Semiotic Society of America

Here is a list of academic programs in semiotics across the world that offer courses at various levels, undergraduate or graduate and doctoral.

Aarhus University, Center for Semiotics (Denmark) – Master’s degree in cognitive semiotics; Supplementary Course in Cognitive Semiotics
Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Programa de Semiótica y Estudios de la Significación (Mexico) – Annual specialization course in semiotics through multi-campus program (with Université de Limoges, Universidad Autónoma de Sinaloa, Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, and Universidad Nacional de Jujuy) (website in Spanish).
South-East European Center for Semiotic Studies, New Bulgarian University (Bulgaria) – The Center includes a Sociosemiotic Laboratory since 2010. Its activities are led by Prof. Dr. Kristian Bankov and Dr. Dimitar Trendafilov. In qualitative and quantitative research projects are involved PhD students in semiotics, students from the postgraduate programs in Brand management and Marketing at NBU, as well as other professors from the socio-humanitarian collegium. Also offered is an MA in Brand Management.
Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, Programa de Estudos Pós-Graduados em Comunicação e Semiótica (Brazil) – The Postgraduate Program in Communication and Semiotics at PUC-SP (COS) is respected in Brazil and around the world, in public and private sectors, as an expressive and original center for research and investigations into communication phenomena and processes and in culture. The COS records repercussions on civil society, in terms of intellectual, cultural and artistic impact, in the dissemination of technical knowledge and also in areas linked to the formulation of cultural policies and access to culture and the arts. There are many professionals who seek Communication and Semiotics to develop their research, including university professors from different areas of knowledge, as well as journalists, curators, artists, photographers, choreographers, filmmakers, gamers, YouTubers, fashion professionals, writers, activists from the third sector, advertisers, marketing professionals, elementary education professionals, cultural producers, lawyers, anthropologists, sociologists, among others. Programs include masters, doctorate, and postdoctorate levels.
Università degli Studi di Urbino, Centro Internazionale di Scienze Semiotiche “Umberto Eco” (Italy) The International Center of Semiotic Sciences brings together universities and other scientific and cultural institutions from Italy, France, Spain and Argentina that operate in the field of the disciplines of languages and meaning and the relationships between semio-sciences, human sciences, and natural sciences.
Università della Svizzera italiana, Institute of Argumentation, Linguistics and Semiotics (IALS) (Lugano, Switzerland) – Courses on verbal communication, semiotics, discourse and dialogue analysis, argumentation and rhetoric within an academic faculty that offers bachelor’s, master’s and Ph.D. degrees in communication sciences. The Institute of Argumentation, Linguistics and Semiotics (IALS) develops its research and teaching around three areas of interest: (a) the reconstruction and evaluation of argumentation in different forms of discourse and different social contexts of communication, (b) the semantic and pragmatic analysis of text and dialogue in relation to the linguistic resources deployed, and (c) the integration of verbal and non-verbal semiotic resources within multimodal and multimedia communicative strategies. The didactic and research activities of IALS are centered in particular on the role of argumentation, rhetoric (both verbal and multimodal strategies) and interpersonal communication in the professional practices of financial communication, public communication, mediation, media and social media, and advertising.
Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) (Canada) – Ph.D. in semiotics. The interdisciplinary doctorate in semiotic studies at UQAM is the only doctoral program in semiotics in the French-speaking world, and the only one in North America. The program welcomes students from a large number of countries who wish to acquire rigorous and diversified training in semiotics and obtain a degree that enjoys a solid reputation. Founded in 1979, this program combines fundamental research and application in particular sectors (literature, communication, art history, discourse analysis, cinema, theater, visual arts, video games, design, philosophy, feminist studies and gender, etc.). Interdisciplinary and multidepartmental, the program is attached to the Department of Literary Studies, which administers it with the participation of the departments of Philosophy, Social and Public Communication, Art History and the School of Media.
University of Bologna, Center for Interdisciplinary Research (Italy). See the PhD in Philosophy, Science, Cognition, and Semiotics (PSCS), the second cycle degree/two-year master in semiotics, and the TraMe – Center for the Semiotic Study of Memory.
University of Tartu, Curriculum in Semiotics (Estonia) – Bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D. degrees in semiotics (taught in Estonian); Master’s and Ph.D. degrees (taught in English). See the Department of Semiotics.
University of Toronto, Minor in Material Culture and Semiotics (Canada) – Minor in material culture semiotics through Victoria College.