Martin Krampen (March 9, 1928 in
Siegen
Siegen () is a city in Germany, in the south Westphalian part of North Rhine-Westphalia.
It is located in the district of Siegen-Wittgenstein in the Arnsberg region. The university town (nearly 20,000 students in the 2018–2019 winter semest ...
– June 18, 2015 in
Ulm
Ulm () is a city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Danube on the border with Bavaria. The city, which has an estimated population of more than 126,000 (2018), forms an urban district of its own (german: link=no, ...
) was a leading German semiotician,
semiotics
Semiotics (also called semiotic studies) is the systematic study of sign processes ( semiosis) and meaning making. Semiosis is any activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, where a sign is defined as anything that communicates something ...
Professor in Göttingen.
Biography
The son of a Protestant pastor, Krampen was born on March 9, 1928 in
Siegen
Siegen () is a city in Germany, in the south Westphalian part of North Rhine-Westphalia.
It is located in the district of Siegen-Wittgenstein in the Arnsberg region. The university town (nearly 20,000 students in the 2018–2019 winter semest ...
and was raised in
Wuppertal
Wuppertal (; "''Wupper Dale''") is, with a population of approximately 355,000, the seventh-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia as well as the 17th-largest city of Germany. It was founded in 1929 by the merger of the cities and tow ...
. He took courses in psychology, philosophy, and theology the University of
University of Tübingen
The University of Tübingen, officially the Eberhard Karl University of Tübingen (german: Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen; la, Universitas Eberhardina Carolina), is a public research university located in the city of Tübingen, Baden-Wà ...
and the
University of Heidelberg
}
Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, (german: Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg; la, Universitas Ruperto Carola Heidelbergensis) is a public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, ...
, and studied design with a focus on painting at
Accademia delle Belle Arti di Firenze
The Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze ("academy of fine arts of Florence") is an instructional art academy in Florence, in Tuscany, in central Italy.
It was founded by Cosimo I de' Medici in 1563, under the influence of Giorgio Vasari. ...
.
In 1953 Krampen began studying graphic design and visual communication at the
Hochschule für Gestaltung.
After graduating from the school with a diploma in, he went on to obtain his PhD in Visual Communications from
Michigan State University in 1962.
While there his studies were focused design and psychology.
Krampen worked in the field of
visual semiotics and
environmental perception, as well as a professional artist. Over the course of his career Krampen held position at universities across North America and Europe teaching courses in social psychology, semiotics, and the psychology of design.
He was the
University of Waterloo
The University of Waterloo (UWaterloo, UW, or Waterloo) is a public research university with a main campus in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is on of land adjacent to "Uptown" Waterloo and Waterloo Park. The university also operates ...
's first full-time research associate, where he worked alongside professor George Soulis to study the influence of
design
A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design' ...
on industry.
Krampen taught Visual Communication at
Hochschule der Künste
The Universität der Künste Berlin (UdK; also known in English as the Berlin University of the Arts), situated in Berlin, Germany, is the largest art school in Europe. It is a public art and design school, and one of the four research universit ...
from 1977 until his retirement in 1993.
Krampen is credited with establishing the field
phytosemiotics
Phytosemiotics is a branch of biosemiotics that studies the sign processes in plants, or more broadly, the vegetative semiosis. Vegetative semiosis is a type of sign processes that occurs at cellular and tissue level, including cellular recognition ...
, the study of vegetative
semiosis.
[ Nöth, Winfried 1990. ''Handbuch der Semiotik''. Stuttgart: J.B.Metzler, pp. 258-259.] His work would go on to become an important branch of semiotic biology or
biosemiotics.
Donald Favareau notes that Krampen's 1981 publication "Phytosemiotics" in ''
Semiotica
''Semiotica'' is an academic journal covering semiotics. It is the official journal of the International Association for Semiotic Studies.
Publication
Since 2000, the journal publishes five issues per year. It is published in English and French.
...
'' is referenced in nearly every introductory overview of the field and that his work is responsible for expanding the scope of
Thomas Sebeok
Thomas Albert Sebeok ( hu, Sebők Tamás, ; 1920–2001) was a Hungarian-born American polymath,Cobley, Paul; Deely, John; Kull, Kalevi; Petrilli, Susan (eds.) (2011). Semiotics Continues to Astonish: Thomas A. Sebeok and the Doctrine of Signs'. ...
's
zoosemiotics
Zoosemiotics is the semiotic study of the use of signs among animals, more precisely the study of semiosis among animals, i.e. the study of how something comes to function as a sign to some animal. It is the study of animal forms of knowing.
Consi ...
info the broader study of signs in relation to living organisms.
In a similar acknowledgement of Krampen's influence,
Kalevi Kull
Kalevi Kull (born 12 August 1952, Tartu) is a biosemiotics professor at the University of Tartu, Estonia.
He graduated from the University of Tartu in 1975. His earlier work dealt with ethology and field ecology. He has studied the mechanisms o ...
credits Krampen's work as "an important step in incorporating biology into semiotics."
He was a co-editor of ''Zeitschrift für Semiotik''.
Select publications
*
*
*
*"Meaning in the urban environment". Routledge; 2013 May 13.
*"A semiotic perspective on the sciences: Steps toward a new paradigm".Anderson, M., Deely, J., Krampen, M., Ransdell, J., Sebeok, T.A. and von Uexküll, T., 1984. ''Essential Readings in Biosemiotics'', p. 377.
*"Phytosemiotics". ''Semiotica'', 1981, ''36''(3-4), pp. 187–210.
References
External links
Martin Krampen's home-page
German semioticians
1928 births
2015 deaths
Plant cognition
{{semiotician-stub