Text/Textuality

There is no clear consensus as to what constitutes a text or how the term should be defined. Instead, the term falls victim to a wide array of interpretations and applications across and within [Page 2809]various disciplines; however, it is often associated with the pioneering work of Roland Barthes and other literary theorists and cultural anthropologists such as Paul Ricoeur, Clifford Geertz, James Clifford, George Marcus, and Stephen Tyler. Here, text is regarded as a sociocultural product and/or process and is expanded from its traditionally narrow definition of being a mere printed medium to include things as wide ranging as paintings, photographs, maps, electronic media, landscapes, as well as economic, political, and social institutions.

A text, in the broadest sense of the word, can be regarded ...