... "in 1982 IRA GLASS, the future creator and host of the public radio program "This American Life," graduated from Brown University with a degree in semiotics. In response, his parents took out a classified ad in their local newspaper: "Corporate office seeks semiotics grad for high paying position." Glass was not discouraged. "My religion was semiotics," he recalled in a recent interview. "Before semiotics I was, like, a middle-class kid who didn't know what he believed. . .. Semiotics, basically, was exactly the way I defined myself." Hätte ich selbst sein können.