Everyday Rituals in Contemporary Settings: The Semiotics of Space and Places of Consumption (Brill Research Perspectives in Popular Culture)

A boutique, a cruise ship, a museum and a hotel all have something in common. But what? They are all places of consumption―not just in the narrow economic sense, but also as part of a broader cultural, emotional, and symbolic phenomenon.
Drawing on a semiotic approach, this book explores how designed environments from foodscapes to memorials convey meanings and guide everyday rituals, helping us to understand how space works as a language that structures practices, communicates values, and expresses identities.
If you're curious about how places work, why they affect us, and what they say, this book gives you the tools to decode them.

Alice Giannitrapani is Associate Professor of Semiotics at the University of Palermo, where she conducts research and teaches semiotics and semiotics of exhibition spaces. She is Deputy Editor of the journal E/C and Deputy Coordinator of the Ph.D. Programme in Semiotics at the University of Palermo. Her main research interests include space, taste and food, and tourism. She has written and edited several volumes, including Spazi, passioni, società (Nuova Cultura, 2017), Foodscapes (Mimesis, 2021), and Introduzione alla semiotica dello spazio (Carocci, 2024).