Roberta "Bobbie" Kevelson (November 4, 1931 – November 28, 1998) was an American academic and

semiotician 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 Sign (semiotics), signs, where a sign is defined as anything that commun ...

. She was an acknowledged authority on the

pragmatism Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that considers words and thought as tools and instruments for prediction, problem solving, and action, and rejects the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality. ...

theories of

Charles Sanders Peirce Charles Sanders Peirce ( ; September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician and scientist who is sometimes known as "the father of pragmatism". Educated as a chemist and employed as a scientist for t ...

Personal life

Kevelson was born in

Fall River, Massachusetts Fall River is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States. The City of Fall River's population was 94,000 at the 2020 United States Census, making it the tenth-largest city in the state. Located along the eastern shore of Mount H ...

and graduated from

B.M.C. Durfee High School B.M.C. Durfee High School is a public high school located in the city of Fall River, Massachusetts, United States. It is a part of Fall River Public Schools and is the city's main public high school, the other being Diman Regional Vocational Tec ...

in 1948. Although married at 17, she returned to college in the 1960s and received her PhD in semiotics from

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

in 1978.

Career

During her

postdoctoral A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). The ultimate goal of a postdoctoral research position is to p ...

time at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

(1979–1981), she introduced the concept of legal semiotics. She subsequently established an international cross-disciplinary center for its study in 1984: the Center for Semiotic Research in Law, Government, and Economics at the

Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvan ...

. She had joined the philosophy faculty of the Berks Campus at Penn State in 1981, where she was awarded the AMOCO Foundation Outstanding Teaching Award in 1986. She was a visiting professor at several institutions, including

The College of William & Mary The College of William & Mary (officially The College of William and Mary in Virginia, abbreviated as William & Mary, W&M) is a public research university in Williamsburg, Virginia. Founded in 1693 by letters patent issued by King William III a ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

. Among her published works are ''High Fives'', ''The Inverted Pyramid'', ''The Law as the System of Signs'' and possibly her most significant work, ''Peirce and the Mark of the Gryphon''. She was a founding member of the

Semiotic Society of America The Semiotic Society of America is an interdisciplinary professional association serving scholars from many disciplines with common interests in semiotics, the study of signs and sign-systems. It was founded in 1975 and includes members from the Un ...

Works

Several works are included in the

Charles Sanders Peirce bibliography This Charles Sanders Peirce bibliography consolidates numerous references to the writings of Charles Sanders Peirce, including letters, manuscripts, publications, and . For an extensive chronological list of Peirce's works (titled in English), se ...

. * Kevelson, Roberta (1986), ''Charles S. Peirce's Method of Methods'', John Benjamins Publishing Co. (February 1986), 180 pages, hardcover (, )
JB catalog page
* * Kevelson, Roberta, ed. (1991), ''Peirce and Law: Issues in Pragmatism, Legal Realism, and Semiotics'', Peter Lang Publishing Group, 225 pages, hardcover ()
PLPG catalog page
* Kevelson, Roberta (1993), ''Peirce's Esthetics of Freedom'', Peter Lang Publishing Group, 360 pages, hardcover ()
PLPG catalog page
* Kevelson, Roberta (1996), ''Peirce, Science, Signs'', Peter Lang Publishing Group, 206 pages, hardcover ()
PLPG catalog page
* Kevelson, Roberta (1998 April), ''Peirce's Pragmatism: The Medium as Method'', Peter Lang Publishing Group, 204 pages, hardcover ()
PLPG catalog page
* Kevelson, Roberta (1999), ''Peirce and the Mark of the Gryphon'', Palgrave, 239 pages, hardcover (, ). Draws from unpublished Peirce manuscripts. *

References

American semioticians Pennsylvania State University faculty People from Fall River, Massachusetts Charles Sanders Peirce 1931 births 1998 deaths B.M.C. Durfee High School alumni {{authority control Brown University alumni Presidents of the Semiotic Society of America