floyd merrell

Hi!

I'm floyd merrell, with a BA (1963 Arizona State University), an MA (1966 New Mexico Highlands University), and I eventually surprised myself with a PhD (1973 University of New Mexico) (I had been a lousy student). I was a high school teacher of chemistry and physics at Alta Loma California (1964-66) and Albuquerque New Mexico (1966-70), and a professor of Latin American culture and communication theory (semiotics) at Purdue University (1973-2011). I also taught during the summers at the Catholic University in São Paulo Brazil (1991-99), and the Federal University in Salvador Brazil (2000-03). While a professor I wrote academic books (33. too many!) for specialists and a string of articles (also too many!).

But I always sensed something was missing. My years of experience in Latin America had left me captivated by the promises and problems of inter-ethnic relations. With a burning desire to think out my feelings along these lines, I decide to try my hand at writing fiction. Finding Himself, whose protagonist is a young man with an Anglo father and a Mexican mother, is my first novel. Writing it raised more questions than I bargained for. So I decided Finding Himself should be the first of a trilogy, and I am now at work on the second and third volumes. I am retired and living in Las Cruces New Mexico with my lovely Mexican wife, Araceli.

Academic Career

A few books (to spare you the pain)

Pararealities: The Nature of Our Fictions and How We Know Them (1983). Deconstruction Reframed (1985). Signs Becoming Signs (1991). Unthinking Thinking (1991). Semiosis in the Postmodern Age (1995). Peirce, Signs, and Meaning (1997). Simplicity and Complexity (1998). Sobre las culturas y civilizaciones latinoamericanas (1999). Signs for Everybody (2000). Living Learning, Learning Living (2002). The Mexicans: A Sense of Culture (2003). Complementing Latin American Borders (2004). Capoeira and Candomblé (2005). Entangling Forms (2010). Becoming Culture (2012). The Afro-Brazilian Art of Coping (2013).