(Colonial) Technology: The Contribution of Lotmanian Culturology to Digital Coloniality Studies

Autores/as

Palabras clave:

Yu. Lotman, Soviet culturology, (The question of) technology, Critical theory, Digital coloniality

Resumen

This article examines the intellectual milieu that challenged Yu. Lotman to think about technological progress in culturological terms. The discussion focuses on the Tartu scholar’s critical theory of technology, which emerged from contact with two specific intellectual projects of the Soviet period, advanced by cybernetics and the Cosmist movement, respectively: the machine-driven ordering of the world and the planetarisation of technology. The article then discusses the contribution of Lotman’s technocriticism to current research on digital coloniality, as an emerging field of study arising from the critique of today’s technological “colonisation” of culture(s) through the core ideas of post/decolonial theory.

Citas

EGOROV, Boris F. The Influence of the Tartu Summer School’s Publications on the Preparation of Robots for Space Flights. Tartu Summer School of Semiotics, Palmse, August, 2011. pp.22-26.

EPSTEIN, Mikhail N. From Culturology to Transculture. In: BERRY, Ellen E.; EPSTEIN, Mikhail N. (ed.). Transcultural Experiments: Russian and American Models of Creative Communication. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999. pp. 15-30.

GEROVITCH, Slava. From Newspeak to Cyberspeak: A History of Soviet Cybernetics. Cambridge, London: The MIT Press, 2002.

GHERLONE, Laura. Lotman Continues to Astonish: Revolutions and Collective Emotions, Bakhtiniana, v. 14, n. 4, pp. 163-183. 2019. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1590/2176-457338371. Access on 13 December 2019.

GHERLONE, Laura. Explosion. In: TAMM, Marek; TOROP, Peeter (ed.). The Companion to Juri Lotman: A Semiotic Theory of Culture. London, New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2022. pp. 282-295.

GHERLONE, Laura. What About the Bogeyman? Collective Emotions, Everyday Life, and the Search for a Scapegoat: A Lotmanian Reading of the Digital Sphere. In: MARAN, Merit; MADISSON, Mari-Liis; VENTSEL, Andreas (ed.). Through the Lens of Dread: Exploring the Meaning-Making of Fear in the Mediasphere. Tallinn: Tallinn University Press, 2025a. pp. 48-84.

GHERLONE, Laura. Affective Atmospheres: Collective Emotions Inside and Outside the Digital Sphere. In: VENTSEL, Andreas; SELG, Peeter (ed.). Power of Emotions: On the Affective Constitution of Political Struggle – A Multidisciplinary Approach. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2025b. pp. 111-131.

GHERLONE, Laura. Digital Decoloniality: Perspectives for De-Universalising, Decentralising and Re-Territorialising Today’s Digital Ecosystem. In: LEONE, Massimo; UMBRELLO, Steven (ed.). Digitally Divided: The Impact of Technology on Belief and Societal Polarization. Springer. Forthcoming.

GHERLONE, Laura; RESTANEO, Pietro. Universality and Conflict as a Decolonial and Culturological Problem. In: MONTICELLI, Daniele; MARAN, Merit; SEDDA, Franciscu (ed.). Semiotics of Conflict: A Lotmanian Perspective. Tallinn: Tallinn University Press, 2024. pp. 120-148.

HOBSBAWM, Eric. Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914-1991. London: Abacus, 1995.

KWET, Michael (ed.). The Cambridge Handbook of Race and Surveillance. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2023.

LAFONTAINE, Céline. The Cybernetic Matrix of “French Theory.” Theory, Culture & Society, v. 24, n. 5, pp. 27-46, 2007. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276407084637. Access on 13 November 2024.

LOTMAN, Yuri. Chto daet semioticheskiy podkhod? [What does the Semiotic Approach Offer?]. Voprosy literatury, n. 11, pp. 67-70, 1976.

LOTMAN, Yuri. O semiosfere [On the Semiosphere]. Trudy po znakovym sistemam, n. 17, pp. 5-23, 1984.

LOTMAN, Yuri. Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture. Translated by Ann Shukman. London, New York: I.B. Tauris, 1990.

LOTMAN, Yuri. O prirode iskusstva [On the Nature of Art]. In: LOTMAN, Yuri. Statyi po semiotike kultury i iskusstva [Articles on Semiotics of Culture and Art]. Saint Petersburg: Akademicheskiy proekt. 2002 [1990]. pp. 265-271.

LOTMAN, Yuri. Besedy o russkoy kulture. (Televizionnye lektsii). Tsikl vtoroy. Vzaimootnosheniya lyudey i razvitie kultur [Conversations about Russian Culture. (Television Lectures). II Cycle: Relationships Between People and the Development of Cultures]. In: LOTMAN, Yuri. Vospitanie dushi [Education of the Soul]. San Petersburg: Iskusstvo—SPB, 414-514, 2005 [1988].

LOTMAN, Yuri. Culture and Explosion. Translated by Wilma Clark. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 2009 [1992].

LOTMAN, Yuri. Proposals for the Programme of the 4th Summer School on Secondary Modelling Systems. In: KULL, Kalevi; SALUPERE, Silvi; TOROP, Peeter (ed.). Beginnings of the Semiotics of Culture. Tartu: University of Tartu Press, 2013 [1970]. pp. 41-43.

LOTMAN, Yuri. The Unpredictable Workings of Culture. Translated by Brian J. Baer. Tallinn: Tallinn University Press. 2013 [1994/2010].

LOTMAN, Yuri. The Phenomenon of Culture. In: LOTMAN, Yuri. Culture, Memory and History: Essays in Cultural Semiotics. Translated by Brian J. Baer, edited by Marek Tamm. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019 [1978]. pp. 33-48.

LOTMAN, Yuri. Memory in a Culturological Perspective. In: LOTMAN, Yuri. Culture, Memory and History: Essays in Cultural Semiotics. Translated by Brian J. Baer, edited by Marek Tamm. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019 [1985]. pp. 133-137.

LOTMAN, Yuri. Technological Progress as a Culturological Problem. In: LOTMAN, Yuri. Culture, Memory and History: Essays in Cultural Semiotics. Translated by Brian J. Baer, edited by Marek Tamm. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019a [1988]. pp. 201-223.

LOTMAN, Yuri. Clio at the Crossroads. In: LOTMAN, Yuri. Culture, Memory and History: Essays in Cultural Semiotics. Translated by Brian J. Baer, edited by Marek Tamm. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019b [1988]. pp. 177-187.

LOTMAN, Yuri. We Will Survive If We Are Wise. In: MONTICELLI, Daniele; MARAN, Merit; SEDDA, Franciscu (ed.). Semiotics of Conflict: A Lotmanian Perspective. Translated by Brian J. Baer. Tallinn: Tallinn University Press, 2024 [1992]. pp. 325-328.

LOTMAN, Yuri. “We Need Everything. There Is Nothing Superfluous in the World….” In: MONTICELLI, Daniele; MARAN, Merit; SEDDA, Franciscu (ed.). Semiotics of Conflict: A Lotmanian Perspective. Translated by Brian J. Baer. Tallinn: Tallinn University Press, 2024 [1993]. pp. 329-340.

LOTMAN, Yuri; USPENSKY, Boris. Introduzione. In: LOTMAN, Yuri; USPENSKY, Boris (ed.). Ricerche semiotiche: Nuove tendenze delle scienze umane nell’ URSS. Turin: Einaudi, 1973. pp. xi-xxvii.

MILAN, Stefania; TRERÉ, Emiliano. Big Data from the South(s): Beyond Data Universalism. Television & New Media, v. 20, n. 4, pp. 319-335, 2019. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476419837739. Access on 13 November 2024.

MOHAMED, Shakir; PNG, Marie-Therese; ISAAC, William. Decolonial AI: Decolonial Theory as Sociotechnical Foresight in Artificial Intelligence. Philosophy & Technology, v. 33, pp. 659-684, 2020. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-020-00405-8. Access on 13 November 2024.

PARTLETT, William; ‎KÜPPER, Herbert. The Post-Soviet as Post-colonial: A New Paradigm for Understanding Constitutional Dynamics in the Former Soviet Empire. Cheltenham, UK; Northampton MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2022.

PETERS, Benjamin. How Not to Network a Nation: The Uneasy History of the Soviet Internet. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2016.

RESTANEO, Pietro. Engaging the Difference. Multiperspectivist Themes in the Soviet History of Ideas, Bakhtiniana, v. 21, n. 01, e68915e. 2026. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/2176-4573e68915. Access on 24 November 2025.

RICAURTE, Paola. Data Epistemologies, the Coloniality of Power, and Resistance. Television & New Media, v. 20, n. 4, pp. 350-365, 2019. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476419831640. Access on 13 November 2024.

RICKBERG, Merit. Towards Complexity Thinking with Juri Lotman: Modelling Cultural Dynamics in Educational Systems. 2023. 110 p. (PhD Thesis in Semiotics and Culture Studies) – Tartu: University of Tartu Press. 2023.

SALIZZONI, Roberto. L’idea russa di estetica: Sofia e Cosmo nell’arte della filosofía. Turin: Rosenberg & Sellier, 1992.

SALUPERE, Silvi. The Cybernetic Layer of Juri Lotman’s Metalanguage. Recherches sémiotiques, v. 35, n. 1, pp. 63-84, 2015. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1050987ar. Access on 13 November 2024.

SEMENENKO, Alekseï. La culture dans le cerveau? La sémiotique soviétique et l’étude de l’asymétrie cérébrale. Slavica occitania, n. 40, pp. 101-117, 2015. Available at: https://interfas.univ-tlse2.fr/slavicaoccitania/1721. Access on 13 November 2024.

SILVA, Tarcízio. Racismo algorítmico em plataformas digitais: microagressões e discriminação em código. São Paulo: Edições Sesc, 2022.

VERNADSKY, Vladimir I. The Biosphere. Translated by David B. Langmuir; revised and annotated by Mark McMenamin. New York: Copernicus, 1998 [1926].

VERNADSKY, Vladimir I. Nauchnaya mysl' kak planetnoe yavlenie [Scientific Thought as a Planetary Phenomenon]. In: VERNADSKY, Vladimir I. Filosofskie mysli naturalista [Philosophical Thoughts of a Naturalist]. Moscow: Akademicheskiy proekt, 2020 [1938]. pp. 15-191.

VERNADSKY, Vladimir I. Evolyutsiya vidov i zhivoe veshchestvo [The Evolution of Species and Living Matter]. In: VERNADSKY, Vladimir I. Biosfera i noosfera. Moscow: Izdatel'stvo AST, 2022 [1928]. pp. 188-213.

VERNADSKY, Vladimir I. Nachalo zhizni i evolyutsiya vidov [The Origin of Life and the Evolution of Species]. In: VERNADSKY, Vladimir I. Biosfera i noosfera. Moscow: Izdatel'stvo AST, 2022 [1930]. pp. 214-224.

VIIDALEPP, Auli. The Expected AI as a Sociocultural Construct and Its Impact on the Discourse on Technology. 2023. 98 p. (PhD Thesis in Semiotics and Culture Studies) – Tartu: University of Tartu Press. 2023.

YOUNG, George M. The Russian Cosmists: The Esoteric Futurism of Nikolai Fedorov and His Followers. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.

Descargas

Publicado

2026-02-09

Cómo citar

Gherlone, L. (2026). (Colonial) Technology: The Contribution of Lotmanian Culturology to Digital Coloniality Studies. Bakhtiniana. Revista De Estudos Do Discurso, 21(1). Recuperado a partir de https://revistas.pucsp.br/index.php/bakhtiniana/article/view/69359

Número

Vol. 21 Núm. 1 (2026)

Sección

Artigos

Licencia

Derechos de autor 2025 Bakhtiniana. Revista de Estudos do Discurso

Creative Commons License

Esta obra está bajo una licencia internacional Creative Commons Atribución 4.0.

Los autores le conceden a la revista todos los derechos autorales referentes a los trabajos publicados. Los conceptos emitidos en los artículos firmados son de absoluta y exclusiva responsabilidad de sus autores.