Over the past twenty years, the annual meetings of the Semiotic Society of America have tracked the growth and development of modern sign theory in American scholarship. Since 1981, the published proceedings of SSA meetings have included representative semiotic work from a wide range of disciplines and every extant «system» of semiotic thought. The papers have especially represented some of the leading intellectual descendants of C.S. Peirce and Ferdinand de Saussure in the United States and Canada. On this ground, the series remains the primary record of North American contributions to sign perspectives, embracing world-wide philosophical, literary, and scientific bases for a 21st-century «doctrine of signs». The proceedings project has consistently pursued excellent scholarship, representative diversity, and quality production. With publication of Semiotics 1996, general editor John Deely and the Semiotic Society continue the record of «representing» American semiotics. The SSA also plan to incorporate more voices from Mexico in an effort to achieve a comprehensive North American «semiotic» which is strongly linked to practical and theoretical developments across the world.