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This
Website is in an easily accessible archive of written text of
scientific and related character. The guiding idea of my work is
to better understand of human beings, that is, of the human
condition. By this term I want to refer to both: what is required
for human organisms to become human persons and communities, and, how
humans, singly and in groups of various sizes, comprise a condition
for the further change of this world including humans themselves.
Naturally, when I say "change" I mean all degrees of becoming and
demise including relative stability.
My writings cover a wide range within and around the sciences
of people and their condition. They span from the biological to
the sociological and cultural sciences and includes perspectives of
valuation. Related texts of real or attributed affiliate minds are
included in a guest
paperssection. Humans are both biotic and cultural
beings. Whether you call it psychology or cultural psychology
or cultural ecology does not matter; you may even prefer a
designation like empirical orgeneralanthropology, both adjectives meant in a broad sense. Also, I
refuse to make sharp and exclusive distinctions between the sciences
and other ways of finding and cultivating beliefs. However the prime
medium of my approach is of a conceptual, abstractive nature; you may
contrast this to approaches cultivated by the arts or the religions.
The core of my work is an endeavor of sorts: to develop a
conceptual system suitable for the purpose. I call it Semiotic
Ecology.
In citations of these papers,
please refer either to the usual bibliographical citations
referred to in each paper's header and also formally given in the
chronological or topical @lists (see
below). Alternatively you can refer to the present internet
location by citing in the usual manner Author(s), Year, Title and
adding the URL of the site: "On internet at
http://www.langpapers.org plus the last revision
date from the header. For unequivocal easy identification you may
also make use of the running letter or number per year given in the
chronological list. The first format may preferably pertain to the
published items, the latter to both published or unpublished
material. Please ask the consent of the author for more than minor
quotations.
If your access to the internet is beyond comfort you can also get
the larger part of the papes (espacially those since around 1990) by
purchasing the CD-ROM
published on the occasion of my retirement from the
university office.
For your orientation a map of
the Site Architecture may be
helpful. As a rule the site pages are background color-coded: the
papers themselves appear on a blueish ggg
background. A yellowish ggg
background indicates a list that offers linkt to the papers, either a
bibliographic list or a list giving the content and summary of a
cluster or sequence of related texts, such as the chapters of a book
or lecture, or papers pertinent to a distinct purpose. A greenish
gggbackground such as on the present page points to some
"meta"-type of text useful for orientation within the site and
beyond. A purple ggg
background may be used in special pages and guest pages. I have put
most of the text in standard size Times font. If your browser
presents it too small for comfortable reading, you can easily enlarge
it in the View Menu / Text Size (Internet Explorer) or Preferences /
Appearence: Fonts (Netscape Navigator).
For the sake of finding one's way in the subject matter I have
drawn a kind of map in the Overview
Table or Matrix and distingished six major fields, each with
from three to nine subfields. Descriptions
of the Fields are offered separately. You may also, perhaps
firstly, want to consult a short description
of my personal background and perspectives, a kind of VITA,
if you like (both really soon now!).
A bilingual Glossary of
Terms(in progress) may help with unfamiliar terms.
Clicking on the Emblem in the title field at the top of any
page leads to some elucidations of essential terms in their
context.
| Fields and Subfields | Entry Rcommendations | Major and Recent Titles | In Depth Study |
SemEco Semiotic Ecology Semiotische Oekologie | Recommended Reading(s) | Major Title a Major Title b ... | @List (Annot. Bibliogr.) Recommended Reading(s) |
But it is perhaps best to peruse the Overview
Table or Matrix. This is organized in rows,
each representing a subfield, or in groups of
rows, each set representing a field. The columns
gather kinds of information: Column 1 gives English and
German field names and theirabbreviationsand it can link you to field descriptions.Columns 2 to 4 contain links to some of the more important
papers in each subfield. Column 2 contains one or two
entry level recommendations. Column 3 presents the major
and recent title(s) in the (sub)field. Column 4 offers handles
for penetrating the scope of the respective (sub)field in depth. In
addition to further useful readings it links to classified and
annotated bibliographic @lists. For newcomers I recommend
to concentrate on columns 2.
The links to classified and
annotated bibliographic@Lists in column 4 give the
bibliographic data of all the papers pertinent in major or
subsidiary ways for the respective subfield. Naturally some papers
may show up in several lists. These @Lists may present from 3 to 30
titles. Also these @Lists present Abstracts and/or
Zusammenfassungen of many of the papers. The bibliographic items
link you the the electronic form of the papers themselves. It
will take some time yet until all papers shall be consistently
categorized and linked.
You may also want to consult a chronological
list of all papers. Each paper carries a unique
identification consisting of the year of its publication or origin
and a running letter and number within the year. Also at the end of
bibliographic data find the often several @Codes for the
categories. The categories are repeated in the header of each paper.
Don't expect perfect consistency at this time.
You can access any particular paper not referred to in the
overview table only from the respective @List. Links to the
most informative texts are gathered in the Overview
Matrix. At this time only a selection of papers is offered on
the web.In due time access will also be possible from the
chronological list.
If you want to locate the
papers written together with one or several of my colleages and
cooperators or based explicitly on the work of students or
cooperators over the years, please consult the Acknowledgment
and Index to Cooperators' Names. I am adding pertinent
excerpts of students' and cooperators' papers or thesis work. Also
text of living or earlier writers and of an important relation to my
work that may be hard to get at are included in a guest
papers section.
Participating in seminars, conferences, and coursework, I have
thought it helpful to give a list of Actual
EventsI am involved in. The list links you to
upcoming events' descriptions and reading lists.
Sorry, many of the papers are in
German; those in English are marked in the overview matrix with a
$-sign, those with an English abstract with a ¢-sign. All
material is © Alfred Lang 1960 to the present except when marked
otherwise. It can be used for scientific and educational ends under
the usual ethical constraints. The author welcomes receiving notice
in case of more than casual use and asks those concerned to request
for permission for republication in hard or soft form. Links on
websites to the present site are welcome. I appreciate feedback to
questions rised or problems encountered. Please mailto:
info@langpapers.org
All papers carry a field in the header giving in addition to the
@Codes the approximate size in kilobytes (KB) and the number of
pictures and tables. A typewritten page usually contains between 2
and 3 kilobytes; a printed page from 2 to 4 KB depending on the size
of the page and of the font used. So you can make reasonable
decisions as to reading on line or downloading with respect to your
connections. Saving a page in your browser in html-format will allow
later to open the file from the browser whereas saving in text-format
will lead to loss of formating.
This website is created and maintained on a Mac Powerbook with
HomePage (3.0) and has been tested with both Netscape Navigator (4.0)
and Microsoft Explorer (4.0). They format reasonably well with most
screen sizes. Some inconvenience may result from both major browsers
being incapable of complying with column width specifications in
tables.Since color is used sparingly you will loose little in
printouts. However, page breaks, at this time, are not rendered
well.
Purpose
| Citation
| Architecture
| How
to use Overview |
More
Details |
Community
| Logistics
