Umberto Eco

Interview

• "The Nomenclature and Electronic Democracy" (Milano - SMAU, 21/09/95)
• "Encyclopaedias on CD-Rom /1" (Bologna-Futur-show, 10/04/1997)
• "Encyclopaedias on CD-Rom /2" (Bologna-Futur-show, 11/04/1997)

Biography

Umberto Eco was born in Alessandria on 15 January 1932 and graduated in philosophy from the University of Turin. Professor of semiotics at the University of Bologna since 1971, he previously taught at Florence University, Sao Paulo University in Brazil, Northwestern University Chicago, Yale University, and Columbia. Essayist and novelist, Eco is honorary president of the International Centre of Semiotics and Cognitive Studies at the University of San Marino, member of the Council for Italo-American Relations, and member of the Technical Committee of the Institute for the Study of Innovation in the Mass Media.

Since 1959 he has been editorial consultant for the publishing house Bompiani. He was a cofounder of the magazine Marcatrè in 1961 and Quindici in 1967. With L.Anceschi, N.Balestrini, E.Pagliarani, A.Porta, E.Sanguineti and others he formed "Gruppo 63", an Italian avant-guarde movement which aimed to reformulate the expressive criteria of the novel. His interests range from the history of aesthetics to avant-guarde poetry and mass communications. In 1980 he published his first novel, "The Name of the Rose", a great success which brought his name to the attention of the general public. The gothic mystery set in a medieval monastery has been translated into 32 languages and filmed in 1986 by Jean Claude Annaud.

Among the numerous prizes and awards he has received are the French Légion d'Honneur in 1993, the Premio Strega in 1981, the Ambrogino d'Oro in 1988; the Premio Bancarella in 1989; honorary degrees from the University of Odense in 1986; from Loyola University in Chicago in 1987; the Sorbonne; the University of Kent in 1992; the Philosophy Faculty of the University of Athens in 1995; and the Academy of Fine Arts of Warsaw in 1996. In 1993 he was elected to the Académie Universelle des Cultures of the Louvre. He contributes to "The Times Literary Supplement", "L'Espresso" and the "Rivista dei Libri" and has been editor in chief of the Encyclopedia. Guida multimediale alla storia della civiltà europea, an electronic encyclopaedia published by Opera Multimedia.

Home page: http://www.dsc.unibo.it/istituto/people/eco/eco.htm.

Bibliography

Works published in English include:

• The Island of the Day Before, Harcourt Brace, 1995.
• Apocalypse Postponed, Ed. Robert Lumley, Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1994.
• Six Walks in the Fictional Woods, Harvard UP, 1994.
• How to Travel with a Salmon and Other Essays, Harcourt Brace, 1994.
• Misreadings, McMillan, 1993.
• The Limits of Interpretation, Indiana UP, 1990.
• The Aesthetics of the Chaosmos, The Middle Ages of James Joyce, Cambridge UP, 1989.
• The Open Work, Cambridge, Harvard UP, 1989.
• The Bomb and the General, Harcourt Brace, 1989.
• Foucault's Pendulum, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1988.
• Semiotics and Philosophy of Language, McMillan, 1984.
• The Name of the Rose, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983.
• The Theory of Semiotics, Indiana UP, 1976.