This article proposes the concept of “nationalness” to account for the persistent circulation of national labels as a tool of distinction. We argue that the concept expands on the traditional conception of nation as country of origin to include cultural notions of sensuous and aesthetic qualities that are semiotically tied to national “essence.” Nationalness connects products to nations not only through indexicality but also iconicity. It is made possible through “rhematization,” the process of appropriating signs whose interpretants are taken to be iconic. Talk of nationalness enables consumers to make sense of national labels in today’s world where the both ends of capitalism—manufacturing and consumption—are thoroughly global. Instead of confining our analytical focus to top-down national branding projects, we examine how consumers invoke the idea of a nation to describe their uses of industrial products. Our case study is the popular concept of “British sound” circulated among audiophiles. Drawing on online discussions of an internet community, the article shows that audiophiles refer to Britishness as a key mechanism to distinguish their consumption experiences from mass market consumption. We further show how the label “British sound” can be used to describe the experiences of consumer products that are no longer manufactured in Britain.

The evolution of monotheism within a polytheist culture is strictly connected with the institution of the dialectics between “monolatry” and “idolatry.” On the one hand, one divinity among many becomes the center of an increasingly exclusive cult; on the other hand, this exclusivity unfolds in parallel with the stigmatization of any alternative veneration. The establishment of monolatry is substantiated both in sacred texts, which designate the only god, forbid all others, prescribe the legitimate cult, and condemn deviations, and in liturgy that avoids any reference to multiplicity of transcendence. The liturgical work of monolatry, however, is not only positive, since in addition to regulating the material, verbal, and actional signs of the cult, it also entails a destructive tension. Thus, in establishing monolatry, determining formulae for evoking the only transcendence is as essential as destroying any signs that might contaminate it by representing a rival divinity.

In this essay I examine gold’s semiotic claims in the context of perceptions of gold in global financial markets, beginning with an intriguing parallel drawn by my informants between gold and Bitcoin. I make several interrelated arguments: (1) that in a variety of cultural contexts, gold has become a site for a very particular semiotic claim—that of not signifying at all; (2) that in the contemporary instance of physical gold in relation to other assets based on gold, this is expressed in an attention to gold’s material, tactile qualities (represented both iconically and indexically), and its extrasocial character; (3) that similar claims are made for Bitcoin, often drawing on a “digital metallism,” and idiom of gold; and (4) that the self-reflexive semiotic properties of gold have a long and diverse cultural history. In concluding, I speculate on how gold’s particular semiotic stance reflects one possible articulation of nature and convention as sources of meaning.

This article examines how a discourse of nationhood has developed and evolved in Acadie since the nineteenth century. It describes the important role played by language ideologies in the construction of competing discourses in the Francophone world. The discursive changes that have occurred since the 1960s in relation to the distribution of material and symbolic resources will be explored, with a specific focus on the resemioticization of French vernaculars in artistic creation and tourism. Finally, the authors will illustrate how the Acadians have transformed a discourse of stigmatization into a discourse of differentiation by rejecting the standard language ideology that has traditionally defined the Franco-Canadian community. The examples of artistic production and tourism will be used to illustrate how Acadians have profited from the adoption of this discourse in national and international markets.

This article argues that a late-night television infomercial displays the structure of a ritual rite of passage. It tracks how the infomercial creates a state of ideological liminality that is redressed by a series of poetic (linguistic) parallelisms. This culminates in a trope of incorporation that transforms the social identity of the viewer from “unsuccessful” to “successful.” Ritual in form yet electronic in medium, the conclusion relates the ritual merging of consumer and new product type in processes of commodification to the ways in which cultural analogy, ideological and otherwise, moves certain kinds of social meanings into new arenas of practice.

This article explores the mediatized nature of the circulation of psychoanalysis in Buenos Aires, Argentina, by focusing on psychoanalytic talk and listening practices, inside and outside the clinical setting. It shows that mediatization processes, which link institutional practices to processes of communication and commoditization (Agha 2011a), are key for understanding how psychoanalytic knowledge (including its lexical register) and its therapeutic practice get reproduced in fractionally congruent forms within everyday interactions across Buenos Aires. Specific emphasis is placed on the many uptake formulations of psychoanalytic practice that are observed today, on the scale-changing effects of mediatization, and on changes in the propinquity of interactants in psychoanalytic encounters.