About this Book

“CAN TEXTS LIE? On the Problematics of Working with Unreliable Sources” is a collection that includes a variety of material from the 4th Yuri Lotman Semiotic Conference at the University of Tallinn in 2012. This conference concentrated on problematics in the humanities relating to the criticism and analysis of the sources of scientific research.

Developing the ideas of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics, the articles expand upon the possibilities of using counterfeit or deliberately misinforming sources in scientific research; cases, where it is difficult to understand, which text is the most “original” or authoritative; the problems of textological, philological, historical and cultural research.

The book is divided into four sub-parts. The first part includes essays studying the linguistic and cultural aspects of the terms “right/wrong” on a theoretical level. In addition, the conference thesis from Juri Lotman’s personal archive “On the Inevitability of Untrue Utterances” is published for the first time and promoted in an accompanying commentary by Tatyana Kuzovkina.

The articles in the second part discuss the source treatment at the Tartu-Moscow School and the culturo-historical problems that relate to it. The articles in the third part analyse cases where unreliability is a part of the author’s strategy, for example, artistic manipulations with the (non) authenticity of sources, fictional biographies and histories. The fourth part concentrates on the phenomenon of lying in different cultural and political discourses.