CentersSouth-East European Center for Semiotic Studies

The Center was founded in 1998, however since the first years of the NBU establishment, semiotics has been among the most important research and academic disciplines at the University. The most significant role in its establishment at NBU has been played by the founder and Honorary Chairman of the Board of Trustees, prof. Bogdan Bogdanov, Honorary Doctor of NBU prof. Thomas Sebeouk, who provided unrepayable international support in the 1990s, as well as prof. Maria Popova – Dean at the time and also the first Director of the Centre for Semiotic Studies. Prof. Bogdanov and prof. Popova are the Bulgarian members of the Executive Committee of the International Association for Semiotic Research.

The interests of the SEECSS are focused both on traditional theoretical research and on applied semiotics alike.
Since 1995, SEECSS has annually organized the internationally popular Early Fall School of Semiotics (EFSS). Over the past twenty years, more than one hundred world-renowned scholars have lectured there, and more than three hundred foreign and an equal number of Bulgarian students have participated in the lectures, seminars and workshops held during the School.

Prof. Kristian Bankov, PhD has been director of SEECSS since 2007 until today.

The Centre is now in its eighth year and has a successful and very popular Master's programme, mainly oriented towards semiotics of marketing - "Advertising and Brand Management" with two specialisations: 'Brand Management' and 'Advertising and Lifestyles' Since 2010, a laboratory of sociosemiotics has been opened, where students and postgraduates participate in specific quantitative and qualitative semiotic research.

In the period between 2009 and 2012, partnering with three universities from abroad and scientists from Estonia, Italy and Finland, the Center developed the first international doctoral program "The European Mind: Doctoral Studies in Semiotics for a Knowledge and Value Based Society" ( www.semknow.eu). Within the framework of NBU, the Center also offers its doctoral program "Semiotics", in which more than 15 students are trained and lead training.
The main interest in the Center's research seminars is in sociosemiotics, textual semiotics and Persian Studies, and the main area of applied semiotics is new media, marketing communications, consumer and culinary culture, and the semiotics of education.

Head of Department:
Prof.Kristian Bankov, DSc
Building 2, Office 306
tel.: +359 /2/8110 111, ext. 23061
е-mail: kbankov@nbu.bg

Secretary
Rumiana Dimitrova
Building 2, Office 306
Tel: +359 /2/8110 635, в. 26051
e-mail: rndimitrova@nbu.bg