@PHDTHESIS{ 2023:1613719982,
 	title = {Echoes of eden : biosemiotics in the material culture of 20th century consumerism},
 	year = {2023},
 	url = "https://tede2.pucrs.br/tede2/handle/tede/10988",
 	abstract = "There is a stark contradiction in contemporary consumer societies between the utility and avarice with which the natural world is repurposed and ravaged by comercial activity and, yet, commemorated and fetishized in our material cultural record. Images, both realistic and stylized, of plants, animal beings, geological, meteorological, and astronomical elements appear ad nasuem in our clothing items, toys, home decor, artwork, media, and jewelery, despite the fact the majority of the contemporary, urbanized citizenry have no meaningful day-to-day contact with these entities in their ?raw? state. Biosemiotics is the study of how species communicate amongst their own kind and others; biosigns is the term coined by this paper to explore how these biosemiotics are used in human material culture and what their presence denotes. Due to the richness of the data sets, mid-20th century department store catalgs are analyzed for the presence of biosigns and the findings are revealing: each epoch has characteristic uses of specific images from the natural world that can be linked to historical, political, economic, and cultural changes underway at that time; the paper interprets three examples in depth as a form of case studies for how this form of analysis could be used convincingly. In this sense, not only does the ubiquitous presence of biosigns in our contemporary world speak to contemporary perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes towards nature itself, but the specificity of the biosigns that mark a particular era and place in time have deep historical implications, as this paper demonstrates.",
 	publisher = {Pontif?cia Universidade Cat?lica do Rio Grande do Sul},
 	scholl = {Programa de P?s-Gradua??o em Hist?ria},
 	note = {Escola de Humanidades}
}