The well-known Italian author was a prolific and learned writer on the theory of interpretation. He earned his doctorate in 1954 for a thesis on Thomas Aquinas, and the medieval world was a favourite subject, but alongside a career as a journalist Eco developed an academic niche in the study of signs or semiotics, becoming professor at Bologna in 1971. While sensitive to the position which much postmodern theory accords to the reader, Eco typically drew back from an ‘anything-goes’ approach. He has attacked deconstructionism and its happy adoption by writers such as Richard Rorty, in favour of a more ‘contractarian’ relationship between author and reader. Foucault’s Pendulum is a long allegory of the dangers of unbridled tendencies to multiply meanings. More academic works include The Limits of Interpretation (1990) and Kant and the Platypus (1997), while historically orientated works include The Search for the Perfect Language (1993). See also reader response theory.