Yeah, semiotics is pretty boring unless you can find ways to apply it. Otherwise it's just a lot of wankery. It doesn't help that it's mostly concerned with lit theory, which is bad enough on it's own.
There are probably some interesting books on the semiotics of math though. And personally, it's completely changed the way I look at grammar. But that's a "bluh bluh no one cares" kind of thing.
I personally really like lit theory, and think semiotics is a brilliant idea. My problem is that I absolutely hate reading about either of those fields, or writing formally. I finish, and then I go "... but that was obvious. Why are we even
talking about this?" I'd absolutely love to teach classes and just
talk, but the permanent act of writing... yeah, I don't think so.
Okay, well. I enjoyed reading Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud, because they're not only accessible but revolutionary, and Nietzsche in particular has a certain energy that I enjoy. Austin was fun. Barthes... yeah, he wrote an excellent and especially interesting essay. After Foucault, though, I've got to say things got pretty meh.
Or, maybe it's that I simply don't enjoy the jargon-heavy esoterica rife with references, that seems more reference and response than actual original idea. Literary theory is neat only so long as it adds something to the work at hand, rather than subtracting from or occluding it, and semiotics seems neat only so long as it is creating, rather than serving as a compendium sodden with dull observations.
Well, we'll just have to see how the rest of the semester goes.