Virtual issue on honor of Jesper Hoffmeyer

Biosemiotics has published a virtual issue in honor of Jesper Hoffmeyer. The virtual issue consists of the editorial "Jesper Hoffmeyer´s biosemiotic legacy" and all his Springer Nature publications (6 articles and 8 book chapters), which are freely accessible online for a period of 8 weeks.

Call for papers for 20th gathering in biosemiotics

The call for papers for the 20th gathering in biosemiotics, to be held at Palacký university in Olomouc, Czech Republic July 8-12th 2020, has been released, see conference webpage. Abstract deadline is February 28th.

Call for papers for NASS XI, "Anticipation and change"

«Anticipation and Change»

The 11th conference of the Nordic Association for Semiotic Studies

Third Call for Papers

Stavanger, Norway, June 13–15th 2019

Venue: Department of social studies, University of Stavanger

The 11th conference of the Nordic Association for Semiotic Studies (NASS XI) will be hosted by University of Stavanger (UiS) and is co-sponsored by Department of social studies (UiS)and «The Greenhouse: An environmental humanities initiative at University of Stavanger»

Theme

The overall theme of NASS XI is «Anticipation and change». Relevant topics include – but are not limited to – the semiotics of child development and human development in general, social change, cultural change, environmental change, ontogeny, and evolution. The anticipatory aspect implies that future studies and the power of imagination are also relevant topics, as are, potentially, learning and perception, expectation and prediction, foresight and preconception. We welcome abstract proposals that approach these topics from a semiotic perspective and encourage interdisciplinary relations between semiotics and other disciplines.

Keynote speakers: 

Ingvil Hellstrand(Network for gender research, University of Stavanger): «Brave new world? Dystopia and social change in contemporary science fiction»

Jon Kvist(Institute of Society and Globalization, Roskilde School of Governance, Roskilde University): «Recent welfare reforms: Development or dismantlement of the Nordic welfare model?»

Jaan Valsiner(Department of Communication and Psychology, Aalborg University): «The little big sign-makers: What can be learned from children for general theory of sign mediation?»

Nora Bateson(filmmaker, writer and educator, President of the International Bateson Institute): «Unnamed senses, unscripted ethics, wide angle attention.»

Abstract submission

Abstracts should be submitted as a Word file attachment to nassXI@uis.no, with subject line ”Abstract for NASS XI”. In order to be considered for the graduate student award and grants (see below), please indicate whether or not you are a graduate student. If you are interested in organizing a thematic session involving several presentations, please contact the conference organizers (same email address as above).

Each abstract submission should contain: (1) The name of the author(s) (surname, given name); (2) Your affiliation (including country of residence); (3) Your email address; (4) The title of the paper; (5) An abstract of max. 500 words; (6) 3–5 keywords; (7) and a short bionote of max. 100 words.

Deadline for abstract submission is December 10th, 2018. Notification of acceptance will be given by January 31st, 2019.

Registration and conference fee

Registration for NASS XI will require payment of a conference fee (early bird 1000 NOK, late registration 1250 NOK) which entitles conference participants to attendance, coffee breaks and a daily lunch, and program booklet. The conference fee includes fee for NASS membership for the period 2019–2021 (250 NOK). 

Early bird registration deadline is March 15th, 2019. Final registration deadline is April 30th, 2019.

Graduate student award and grants

5-10 graduate students presenting a paper at NASS XI will be supported financially by NASS, with a grant of 200 Euro each.

Furthermore, a prize will be awarded for the best graduate student presentation at NASS XI. The prize consists of a gift card worth 300 Euro, and a diploma.

Publication of selected papers

A special issue of Sign Systems Studies, “Anticipation and change”, will be published with selected papers from NASS XI. More info about the journal here: http://www.sss.ut.ee/index.php/sss

Local organizing team

Morten Tønnessen (conference chair), Daria Segal (conference secretary)

Scientific committee (abstract evaluation)

Søren Brier (Copenhagen Business School), Luis Emilio Bruni (Aalborg University), Sara Lenninger (Kristianstad University), Juha Ojala (University of Oulu), Alin Olteanu (Kaunas University of Technology/University of Tartu), Tiit Remm (University of Tartu), Inesa Sahakyan (Université Grenoble Alpes), Aleksei Semenenko (Umeå University), Morten Tønnessen (University of Stavanger)

For more information, contact nassXI@uis.noor visit http://nordicsemiotics.org.

Special issue on biosemiotic ethics freely available online

The special issue of Zeitschrift für Semiotik on biosemiotic ethics guest-edited by Morten Tønnessen, Yogi Hendlin and Jonathan Beever is now freely available online, downloadable in PDF format.

Brief presentation:

This issue presents the rapidly growing field of biosemiotic ethics. In the past two decades, biosemioticians have began to tease out the ethical implications of biosemiotics. The foundational argument is that if semiosis is a morally-relevant capacity, and if all living systems are semiotic, then biosemiosis can serve as the basis for justifying the attribution of moral status to humans, to animals and plants, and even to ecosystems. Biosemiotic ethics opens the road towards a perspective that connects ecological thinking with ethical perspectives.

All articles are licensed under the CC-BY 4.0 International license.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.14464/zsem.v37i3-4

Biosemiotics on Twitter and Facebook

Our journal Biosemiotics is now officially on Twitter and Facebook:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Biosemiotics1

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Biosemiotics

Do follow us there to stay up to date, interact and share biosemiotic publications!

2nd CFP: Special issue "Semiotic aspects of the extended synthesis"

***Extended Deadline for Abstracts to May 1st 2017***

CALL FOR PAPERS
For a Special Issue of the journal Biosemiotics: Semiotic Aspects of the Extended Synthesis.

The journal Biosemiotics (Springer) is preparing a special issue on “Semiotic Aspects of the Extended Synthesis” guest-edited by Andrew M. Winters. While the field of biosemiotics is concerned with the origin and development of natural semiotic systems, much of the discussion has been framed in terms of Darwinian frameworks, including the Modern Synthesis. Non-Darwinian views were held by Uexküll and, more recently, Darwinian views have been supplemented in important ways by Kull, Hoffmeyer, and Barbieri. Many biological phenomena, such as transgenerational epigenetic inheritance, have yet to be explained in terms of these evolutionary theories. In the 1980s, biologists aimed to develop an Extended Synthesis to build upon and replace parts of the Modern Synthesis to better accommodate and explain these observed phenomenon. Given recent discussions of the Extended Synthesis, this Special Issue aims to understand the extent to which biosemiotics is commensurate with burgeoning developments in contemporary biology by exploring how core features of biosemiotics are either consistent or at odds with those accommodated by the Extended Synthesis.
 

The Special Issue of “Semiotic Aspects of the Extended Synthesis” welcomes papers that analyze specific semiotic processes within the Extended Synthesis, assess the general tenability of understanding biosemiotics in terms of the Extended Synthesis, or explore the relationship between biosemiotics and the Extended Synthesis. Papers in the form of theoretical works, empirical findings, or metatheoretical considerations are welcome.

Some potential questions to be explored in this Special Issue include:• How does the extended synthesis differ from Darwinian evolution and the modern synthesis in its impact on biosemiotics?• Does niche construction involve the construction of signs?• How does semiotics contribute to evolutionary-developmental biology?• Do signs further enhance plasticity and accommodation?• Are signs replicable?• Do signs and semiotic systems evolve?• Are signs capable of emerging and contributing to multilevel selection?• To what extent are candidate signs (e.g., genes) involved in genomic evolution? 

Technical Details and Timeline:• Paper Proposals (Title and Abstract) Due May 1st, 2017• Notification of Acceptance May 31st, 2017• Paper Submissions Due September 30th, 2017• Final Drafts Due January 31st, 2018• Electronic Publication February 2018• Print Version Issue #2 August 2018• Papers should be no more than 7,000 words (minus abstract and references)
• Instructions for authors can be found at:http://www.springer.com/life+sciences/evolutionary+%26+developmental+biolog
y/journal/12304• Submit abstracts and contact the editor at andrew.winters@sru.edu

CFP for special issue on the Extended Synthesis

CALL FOR PAPERS

For a Special Issue of the journal Biosemiotics: Semiotic Aspects of the Extended Synthesis

The journal Biosemiotics (Springer) is preparing a special issue on “Semiotic Aspects of the Extended Synthesis” guest-edited by Andrew M. Winters. While the field of biosemiotics is concerned with the origin and development of natural semiotic systems, much of the discussion has been framed in terms of Darwinian frameworks, including the Modern Synthesis. Non-Darwinian views were held by Uexküll and, more recently, Darwinian views have been supplemented in important ways by Kull, Hoffmeyer, and Barbieri. Many biological phenomena, such as transgenerational epigenetic inheritance, have yet to be explained in terms of these evolutionary theories. In the 1980s, biologists aimed to develop an Extended Synthesis to build upon and replace parts of the Modern Synthesis to better accommodate and explain these observed phenomenon. Given recent discussions of the Extended Synthesis, this Special Issue aims to understand the extent to which biosemiotics is commensurate with burgeoning developments in contemporary biology by exploring how core features of biosemiotics are either consistent or at odds with those accommodated by the Extended Synthesis.  

The Special Issue of “Semiotic Aspects of the Extended Synthesis” welcomes papers that analyze specific semiotic processes within the Extended Synthesis, assess the general tenability of understanding biosemiotics in terms of the Extended Synthesis, or explore the relationship between biosemiotics and the Extended Synthesis. Papers in the form of theoretical works, empirical findings, or metatheoretical considerations are welcome.  

Some potential questions to be explored in this Special Issue include: 

• How does the extended synthesis differ from Darwinian evolution and the modern synthesis in its impact on biosemiotics? 

• Does niche construction involve the construction of signs? 

• How does semiotics contribute to evolutionary-developmental biology? 

• Do signs further enhance plasticity and accommodation? 

• Are signs replicable? 

• Do signs and semiotic systems evolve? 

• Are signs capable of emerging and contributing to multilevel selection? 

• To what extent are candidate signs (e.g., genes) involved in genomic evolution? 

Technical Details and Timeline:

• Paper Proposals (Title and Abstract) Due January 31st, 2017

• Notification of Acceptance February 28th, 2017 

• Paper Submissions Due September 30th, 2017

• Final Drafts Due January 31st, 2018

• Electronic Publication February 2018

• Print Version Issue #2 August 2018

• Papers should be no more than 7,000 words (minus abstract and references)

• Instructions for authors can be found here

• Submit abstracts and contact the editor at andrew.winters@sru.edu

Helping Jesper

Dear friends and colleagues,

We are sorry to have to write to you today to inform you that our mutual friend and colleague, Jesper Hoffmeyer, suffered a cerebellar stroke on August 2 of 2016, which has left him considerably impaired physically, though his higher mental faculties appear to have been for the most part spared. The damage to his cerebellum is such that Jesper lost his ability to swallow, speak, see normally and use most of the right side of his body at the time of his stroke four months ago and has been confined to hospital and rehabilitative care centers ever since. 

   Happily, he has been making great progress since that time and, while still tube-fed and wheelchair bound and unable to swallow or coordinate his eye muscles together enough to effectively read, much less write, he has expended extraordinary effort in the speech therapy that he has been given such that now, with great effort and concentration, he can make his messages understood. 

   He has also made great progress in regaining a lot of voluntary muscle control, and can move his trunk, head, limbs and hands at will, and can even propel himself some distances in his wheelchair. All of this progress is extremely encouraging, and is the result not only of Jesper's own heroic efforts at recovery, but of the intensive physiotherapy training that he has been receiving in the Danish healthcare system for the last four months.

The very, very serious problem that we are writing to you about today is this:

The Danish healthcare system puts a limit on how much post-stroke in-residence care it will provide to people who are over the age of 65 years old, who, it is felt, need only enough such care as to be able to make their wishes known to their caretakers such that they can live a quiet life being taken care of by family in their homes. 

   Such a  scenario is not the case at all in Jesper Hoffmeyer's case, who, at 74, is still he active newspaper columnist and public intellectual in Denmark as well as, of course, the leading voice and expert on the discipline of Biosemiotics worldwide. In fact, Jesper was actually working on translating his latest book in Danish, "Doubtful: Seven Things We Used to Believe In" into English at the time that the stroke occurred, and seeing this project to completion remains one of his most pressing concerns.

Yet because of these rules, Jesper's state-sponsored in-residence care and speech, swallowing and voluntary motor control therapy will end this Wednesday, Dec 19 - at which point he must pay his own way to be treated at the Vejle Fjord Rehabilitaion Center, at a basic room day charge of 17,000 Euro ($19,000 USD) per month, plus another 30,000-50,000 Euro ($35,000 - $55,000) for tests ... which is approximately 80,000 Euro ($85,000 USD) for the two months physical therapy that he needs before his motor skills and eye coordination are good enough to allow him to continue his speech and swallowing therapy at home -- and, as is his wish, to be able to read and write with colleagues again and to continue his research and publishing on Biosemiotics.

As the friends, colleagues and intellectual kindred spirits of Jesper Hoffmeyer, we would like to be able to help him and his family at this time, so we have set up this blogpost a simple-to-use donation guide in the hopes of helping them offset these extremely expensive rehabilitation fees this holiday season. There is no set minimum or maximum contribution amount, and every contribution given will be gratefully appreciated, so please feel free to forward the link to this blogpost far and wide.

You can donate to this fundraising effort by using either PayPal or TransferWire (both of which take credit card payments) or even via your own bank's wire services, as you choose. 

To donate via TransferWise, please go to: https://transferwise.com/transferFlow#/enterpayment and provide the following information:

Name:    Ingeborg Skriver

Bank name:    Nordea 

Bank/Branch number:   2340

Account number:   3490950078

Please include the word "Jesper123" in the message to the recipient field in order to make the family's accounting work easier.

To donate via PayPal: Go to this site (you don't need sign-up if you don't have an account):

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=RGYVS77UU9HG6

Please include the word "Jesper123" in the message to the recipient field in order to make the family's accounting work easier.

Friends who have visited Jesper lately relate that he is extremely touched by, and grateful for, all the kind wishes that have been sent his way by his many friends, fans, and colleagues from around the world. He has mentioned, too, even prior to this email, that should he be able to finish his new book this year, he wants to include in it an acknowledgement of all the people who have supported him during this exceedingly difficult time.

On behalf of Jesper Hoffmeyer, then, if we may, we thank you all for whatever contribution you are able to provide him with at this time, and we wish you all a happy holiday season and continued good health.

Mette Miriam Böll, Luis Bruni, Paul Cobley, Don Favareau, Claus Emmeche, Kalevi Kull and Frederik Stjernfelt, for the International Society for Biosemiotic Studies.

CFP: Session "Biosemiotics in dialogue" at 13th World Congress of Semiotics

CFP for the session “Biosemiotics in dialogue”

IASS/AIS 13th World Congress of Semiotics “Cross-Inter-Multi-Trans” (Kaunas, Lithuania, 26-30 June 2017)

Conceptually, biosemiotics is the semiotic study of living systems. In essence, biosemiotics is already more-than-semiotic as well as more-than-biological – it is interdisciplinary in nature, and builds on synthesis between ideas and theories from various fields. In this session, we will look at the history as well as future of biosemiotics in its relating to various fields.

More specifically, we look for answers to the following questions: What are the historical, methodological and conceptual ties between biosemiotics and neighboring disciplines? How can fruitful theoretical synthesis in form of biosemiotics best be achieved? How can biosemiotics draw on ideas and perspectives from neighboring fields of endeavor? What can other fields in semiotics and beyond learn from biosemiotics? How can biosemiotics in the best way take part in solving essential scientific problems of our time?

For participating, please register to the World Congress with indication of participation in the session “Biosemiotics in dialogue” and send your abstract also to timo.maran [@] ut.ee. Please note that the registration deadline is November 30, 2016.

With kind regards,

Kalevi Kull,

Morten Tønnessen,

Timo Maran

Introduction to biosemiotics posted in Springer´s blog LifeScienceToday

A brief introduction to biosemiotics, "Biosemiotics: Making sense of nature", co-written by me, Alexei Sharov and Timo Maran and largely based on three of our editorials for Biosemiotics has been posted in Springer´s blog LifeScienceToday.

3rd Entry in the Biosemiotics Glossary Project: INTENTIONALITY

Dear Friends in Biosemiotics,

In 2014, Morten Tønnessen and the editors of Biosemiotics officially launched the Biosemiotic Glossary Project in the effort to: (1)  “solidify and detail established terminology” being used in the field for the benefit of newcomers (2) to, by involving the entire biosemiotics community, “contribute innovatively in the theoretical development of biosemiotic theory and vocabulary” via the discussions that result (Tønnessen 2015).

Towards those ends, I have assented to collate your contributions to the next entry to be included in the Glossary project, which is the important and deeply debated notion of intentionality.
 And to make it as easy as possible for you to share with us your own perspectives on this concept, we have set up a very simple online survey for you to access, and to simply click through our list of pre-given responses OR to add in new responses of your own, to the exact extent that you like.

PART 1 of this survey consists of 5 simple short answer QUESTIONS regarding the notion of intentionality, as it may be conceptualized from a biosemiotic perspective, and may be accessed by clicking here:https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/MKHPT97

PART 2 of the survey asks you to consider how the term intentionality has been conceptualized in a small number of previously published QUOTES and to click on the response that best reflects your opinion of their suitability for use in biosemiotics. This part of the survey can be accessed by clicking here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/T66XDMH

Again, you should feel free to reply to either or both parts of the survey, as you like, and even within each part of the survey, you can choose which questions to answer and which to ignore. Any and ALL feedback you can give us will be helpful for our purposes on compiling this Glossary, as discussed in more detail in the attachment below.

For as understood in the everyday sense of the term, intentionality refers to deliberate, purposeful action – “to have in mind as a purpose or goal” (Merriam-Webster) “volition which one is minded to carry out” or, more broadly, “ultimate purpose; the aim of an action; that for which anything is intended” (OED). While in philosophical and phenomenological terms, following Brentano, “Every mental phenomenon is characterized by what the Scholastics of the Middle Ages called the intentional (or mental) inexistence of an object, and what we might call, though not wholly unambiguously, reference to a content, direction toward an object (which is not to be understood here as meaning a thing), or immanent objectivity” (1874[1995]:88-89).

More colloquially, this oft-used sense of the word intentionality refers to “The property of a thought or experience that consists in its being consciousness ‘of’ or ‘about’ something” (MacIntyre and Smith 1982: xiii).
 Biosemiotics, in its concern with explaining the emergence of, and the relations between, both biological ‘end-directedness’ and semiotic ‘about-ness’ (or what John Deely calls “being towards another” [2001:478]) in nature, would seem a fertile field for re-conceptualizing the notion of intentionality, and thus the online questionnaire seeks to survey and to document the current thinking in the field about this concept.

To encourage maximum response, we have endeavored to keep the online questionnaire short, using multiple choice response buttons in Part 2 and with even the longest of the 5 short answer questions appearing in Part 1 asking for only a one, or at most two, sentence response. You may also choose to respond anonymously, if you wish.

As you can see, we have endeavored this year to make the submission of your Glossary responses as easy as time-efficient possible, so we do hope that as many members of the biosemiotics community will take the few minutes needed to fill out this short online survey and to help us get a sense of how this elusive and important concept should (and perhaps should not) be conceptualized in biosemiotics.

We ask that you kindly do fill out this survey at your earliest convenience and, ideally, well in advance of our annual Gatherings in Biosemiotics conference, which begins on July 4, 2016 in Prague, so we may begin discussing some of the preliminary results of the survey together with one another at that time.

Thank you all once again for your participation in this project. We very much look forward to hearing your thoughts soon!

With all best wishes,

Don Favareau for The Biosemiotic Glossary Project

CFP: Special Issue of Biosemiotics: Constructive biosemiotics

Call for Papers

Special Issue of Biosemiotics (Springer): Constructive biosemiotics.

The journal Biosemiotics (Springer) is preparing a special issue on “Constructive biosemiotics” guest-edited by Tommi Vehkavaara and Alexei Sharov. By the epithet “constructive“ we are referring to a naturalized approach to agency, normativity, and knowledge that emphasizes the primacy of activity and real construction of the cognitive agents themselves as opposed to the view to agents as mainly passively or mechanically reacting. The aim of the Special Issue is to integrate such constructive approach with biosemiotics so that organisms and perhaps other types of living systems are considered as agents that construct their “knowledge”, i.e. their habits of interpreting signs, their own functional structure, and their environment (that typically includes other agents) they are interacting with. Such constructive perspective is present to some extent in the works of theoretical classics of biosemiotics, especially of Jakob von Uexküll (concepts of functional circle and Umwelt), Gregory Bateson (cybernetics and information), and C.S. Peirce (meaning of sign as constructed by its interpreter). In this special issue we welcome also other constructive starting points – not so often employed in biosemiotics – like Jean Piaget’s constructivism, Richard Lewontin’s emphasis on construction over adaptationism, autopoietic approaches, cybernetics, General systems theory (Ludwig von Bertalanffy), evolutionary epistemology, and interactivism (Mark Bickhard) as far as they are somehow applied to biosemiotic problematics.

Independently on the chosen semiotic terminology (e.g., sign, representation, meaning, or information), constructive biosemiotics understands the referents of these terms as being constructed by biosemiotic agents. Either these referents are materially constructed (composed) by the agent, or some already existing and available material items are identified and taken into service by the agent so that only their semiotic roles are constructed. In both cases, material items are merely vehicles of their semiotic functioning that are picked up for use according to the actual needs of the agent. That would mean to take the organism or agent point of view in its interaction with the world. The activity of agents is controlled by their subsystems that are goal-directed or embodying some normative functional criteria, which in some cases enables the agent to judge and detect the success of its semiotic operations. Although the developmental or short-term time scale is more natural in constructive view, we suggest that constructive biosemiotics should expand to the evolutionary dynamics, evolvability and (re)construction of receptor and effector subsystems of agents, and the whole evo-devo problematic. E.g. what is the role of agential constructions in longer term time scales (e.g. Baldwin effect) and whether or in which sense there can be said to be evolutionary agents (lineages, populations, etc.) capable of learning (evolutionary epistemology, vertical biosemiosis).

The special issue of Constructive biosemiotics welcomes papers that emphasize the constructive perspective in biosemiotic processes at functional and evolutionary time scales. The central question is how biosemiotic agents or systems are constructed and are constructing their semiotic behaviors like 

1. cognitive interactions (meaning formation and communication),

2. navigation in the environment (functional or intentional movements),

3. functional reconstruction of the environment (e.g. niche construction, moulding the other agents),

4. self-maintenance, self-modification, and (recursive) self-production of (semiotically) functional structures or scaffoldings (e.g., constructive development of full-scale competence), and

5. self-identification and -determination (e.g. the normative functioning of immune systems).

A further question concerns the criteria of agency. While organisms are usually understood as the prototype of biosemiotic agents, it can also be considered whether (or in which sense) it would be reasonable to consider also some other kind of biological unities – individual cells, organs, or populations, species, lineages, etc. – as agents capable of these behaviors. The special issue welcomes theoretical works, empirical findings, and metatheoretical considerations that employ constructive perspective biosemiotically relevant way.

Timetable and technical requirements:

- Deadline for submitting tentative titles and abstracts: January 2016

- Deadline for paper submission: September 2016

- Electronic publication ahead of print: January-February 2017

- Paper version, Issue #2, August 2017.

- Recommended length 7,000 words. Figures and tables are welcome (if possible).

- Instructions for Authors

- Contact with editors by e-mail: tommi.vehkavaara@uta.fi or sharoval@mail.nih.gov

Call for contributions: "Rhetorical Animals: Boundaries of the Human in the Study of Persuasion"

Shared on request:

CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS
Rhetorical Animals: Boundaries of the Human in the Study of Persuasion

Editors:
Alex C. Parrish (James Madison University)
&
Kristian Bjørkdahl (Rokkan Centre for Social Studies)

In recent years, humanists and social scientists have shown increasing interest in human-animal relations – to the point where many now speak of an ‘animal turn’ in the humanities and social sciences. Across history, psychology, anthropology, literature, sociology, philosophy, and law, an interdisciplinary field of human-animal studies has been forming. Certain common themes run through this diverse field, not least the reproduction of human-animal difference, and the conditions and the implications thereof.

Despite the long history of language use as a marker of such difference, the academic quest to investigate the boundary between human and nonhuman has, somewhat surprisingly, not taken root within rhetorical studies – at least not until now. For this edited volume, we therefore call for chapters that investigate the place of nonhuman animals in the purview of rhetorical theory; what it would mean to communicate beyond the human community; how rhetoric reveals our ‘brute roots.’ In other words, this book invites contributions which enlighten us about likely or possible implications of the animal turn within rhetorical studies. Would such a turn imply, for instance, that rhetoric needs a nonanthropocentric reconfiguration? The question, perhaps, is this: What difference would it make to the discipline if we assumed that nonhuman forms of communication were as interesting as human ones?

For this volume, we invite contributions from a variety of academic perspectives that help elucidate how rhetoric can benefit from and contribute to human-animal studies. Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be submitted, with a brief biography, to Alex Parrish at alexcparrish@gmail.com and to Kristian Bjørkdahl at kristian.bjorkdahl@uni.no. The closing date for submissions is 10 June 2015. Successful applicants will be notified by 20 June 2015. Full chapters are due 20 January 2016.

2nd CFP, extended abstract deadline March 15th: "Animals in the Anthropocene - human-animal relations in a changing semiosphere"

The Second Call For Papers for the conference "Animals in the Anthropocene: Human-animal relations in a changing semiosphere" (Stavanger, Norway, September 17-19th 2015) has appeared (see conference webpage and 2nd CFP).

Extended deadline for submission of abstracts (oral presentations): March 15th 2015. Please submit your abstract to anthropoceneanimals@uis.no.

Keynote speakers: Almo Farina (Italy), Gisela Kaplan (Australia), Dominique Lestel (France), David Rothenberg (USA), Bronislaw Szerszynski (UK) and Louise Westling (USA).

The conference will feature 7 theme sessions:

– “Animals mediating the real and the imaginary in the past” (chairs: Siv Kristoffersen & Kristin Armstrong Oma, Museum of Archaeology, University of Stavanger, Norway)

– "Animal representations in popular culture and new media" (chairs: Kjersti Vik & Lene Bøe, University of Stavanger, Norway)

– “Animals, semiotics, and Actor-Network-Theory” (chairs: Silver Rattasepp & Timo Maran, University of Tartu, Estonia)

– “Global species” (chair: Morten Tønnessen, University of Stavanger, Norway)

– “Humans and other animals, between anthropology and phenomenologies” (chair: Annabelle Dufourcq, Charles University, Czech Republic)

– “Understanding the meaning of animals“ (chairs: Forrest Clingerman, Ohio Northern University, USA & Martin Drenthen, Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands)

– “Wild animals in the era of humankind” (chair: Morten Tønnessen, University of Stavanger, Norway)

Submitted abstracts will be considered for a planned book to be published in Lexington Books´ series "Ecocritical Theory and Practice".

2nd survey conducted by Biosemiotics - 'Umwelt' (the biosemiotic glossary project)

Dear all,

on behalf of the journal Biosemiotics, I refer you to a questionnaire which we now distribute in the biosemiotic community in preparation of the second review article in the biosemiotic glossary project. Carlo Brentari, Riin Magnus and I have been assigned as authors of this scientific article, which will review the term ‘Umwelt’ (in the sense established by Jakob von Uexküll in his Umwelt theory). As part of the editorial process, each review article will, when submitted, be distributed to the members of the editorial board of Biosemiotics and further to those cited in the article, for feedback. 

A survey in the biosemiotic community is conducted in preparation of each review article. The associated questionnaire, which is to be returned to me as handling editor, is distributed to a wide range of biosemioticians, including but not necessarily restricted to/via the members of the editorial board and advisory board of Biosemiotics, the biosemiotics email list (biosemiotics@lists.ut.ee), the board members of the International Society for Biosemiotic Studies (ISBS), the board members of the International Society of Code Biology (ISCB), and the Biosemiosis blog (http://biosemiosis.blogspot.com/).

The invited authors are tasked with describing the outcomes of the survey associated with their review article, and to do so systematically and in an unbiased manner. However, when it comes to synthesis and suggestions, they will have the freedom to propose their own view even if it contradicts the general/popular understanding.

The deadline for returning the attached questionnaire is August 20^th. It should be sent to my email address (mortentoennessen AT gmail.com or alternatively morten.tonnessen AT uis.no). The questionnaire (Word format) is available via my Academia.edu page, here.

My best,

Morten Tønnessen

Co-Editor-in-Chief of Biosemiotics

See also:

Questionnaire from Biosemiotics - and info about the biosemiotic glossary project (November 2013)

Message on the editorial board of Biosemiotics (Springer)

We are in the process of reorganizing the Editorial Board (EB) for the Biosemiotics journal, as we have explained at the recent 14th Gathering in Biosemiotics in London (June 30 - July 4). Please note that the new and revised editorial board will have fewer members than the current one.

The duties of the EB members are:

(1) To support Biosemiotics as the main journal of the International Society for Biosemiotics Studies (ISBS) and contribute to ensure its quality.

(2) To provide help in reviewing papers submitted to Biosemiotics and comply with journal guidelines and standards.

(3) To facilitate submission of high-quality papers to Biosemiotics, e.g. by writing reviews on topics of special interest, organizing Special Issues, or promoting the journal at various academic meetings and in communication with relevant scholars.

The main benefits of being a member of the EB are possibility to contribute to the development of biosemiotics as a discipline and free access to the electronic version of Biosemiotics.

If you are interested in becoming a member of the new EB, please, send us a message indicating your interest, with your CV in attachment. Please note that the Editors-in-Chief will jointly decide on the membership of the EB, and that we cannot guarantee any particular candidate a spot in the EB based on motivation alone. Our decision will in the main be based on the merit and competence of the candidates in core biosemiotics.

Our best,

Alexei Sharov

Timo Maran

Morten Tønnessen (mortentoennessen@gmail.com)

(Editors-in-Chief)

CFP: Gatherings in Biosemiotics 14

Gatherings in Biosemiotics 14

Middlesex University, London (UK), 30 June – 4 July 2014.

The Fourteenth Annual Gathering in Biosemiotics will be held in London from 30 June to 4 July 2014, under the auspices of Middlesex University in collaboration with the International Society of Biosemiotic Studies. The aim of the gathering is to provide scholars and researchers in various academic disciplines with a common platform to discuss the roles played by signs and communication in life processes.

The Scientific Advisory Committee of the 14th Gathering in Biosemiotics invites scholars and researchers from all over the world to submit their abstracts of presentations which are primarily centred on the roles and the significance of signs in life processes. Favoured abstracts will

• contribute to and elaborate biosemiotics
• be up-to-date regarding theory, methods and data, and
• demonstrate understanding of, and refer to, existing works in the field.

Abstracts should be 300-600 words, typed using a standard word processing format (using Times New Roman 12 point font, and setting the page size for A4). Abstracts should be submitted as single page files to the following address:abstracts2014 [a] biosemiotics.org to be received by no later than 14 March 2013. Please name the abstract file with the author’s (your) surname in capital letters, for instance SEBEOK.doc.

For early registration and any additional information, please contact p.cobley [a] mdx.ac.uk.

Session on Biosemiotic ethics at 12th World Congress of Semiotics

Dear all,

I have taken the initiative to a session (either a study session or more likely a roundtable, depending on the interest) at the 12th World Congress of Semiotics (Sofia, Bulgaria, 16-20 September 2014) entitled "Biosemiotic ethics". Abstracts for individual presentations can be sent directly to me. The description of the topic of this session is as follows (see here for other proposed sessions):

***

Biosemiotic ethics

Morten Tønnessen, University of Stavanger, Norway (mortentoennessen AT gmail.com)

A dozen to 20 years ago, two of the most central biosemioticians, first Jesper Hoffmeyer and then Kalevi Kull, addressed connections between biosemiotics and ethics. The last ten years a new generation of scholars have started working out a biosemiotic ethics. The foundational idea is that if all living systems are semiotic, then biosemiosis can serve as basis for justifying attribution of moral status to human and non-human individuals and to various ecological entities. Most of the scholars involved in this endeavor have taken Jakob von Uexküll’s Umwelt theory as their starting point. Recent relevant publications include a translation of Uexküll’s 1917 article “Darwin and the English Morality”, with a framing essay entitled ““Darwin und die englische Moral”: The Moral Consequences of Uexküll’s Umwelt Theory”.

Relevant questions for discussion include but are not limited to the following: In what ways does a biosemiotic ethics potentially take us beyond sentience-centered approaches? Does biosemiotic ethics represent a new form of consequentialism, or should it be placed within some other tradition? What ramifications do different views on the semiotic threshold have within the context of normative ethics? Is there (something akin to) normativity in the very constitution of the Umwelt? Does the semiosphere at large (qua biosphere) have intrinsic value? And what, in terms of biosemiosis, is the origin of value?

Questionnaire from Biosemiotics - and info about the biosemiotic glossary project

Dear all,

on behalf of the journal Biosemiotics, I refer you to a questionnaire which we now distribute in the biosemiotic community in preparation of the biosemiotic glossary project. The editorial team of Biosemiotics, which counts Alexei Sharov, Timo Maran and myself (note that in parallel Marcello is finishing the final issues he is responsible for the next few months), has decided to go through with this project, and that I will be its handling editor.

The genre for the resulting publications will be invited review articles. The first, standard-setting review article, on the notions ‘agent’ and ‘agency’, will be written by me personally. One review will be published in each regular issue of Biosemiotics – in other words, usually there will be two review articles per year. The first article will appear in no. 3/2014. Each article will review one or more terms.

While I am the handling editor for these review articles, all three of us will be involved in decision making. We will routinely discuss and decide on what term(s) to review next, what author(s) to invite to write each review, etc. As part of the editorial process, each review article will, when submitted, be distributed to the members of the editorial board of Biosemiotics and further to those cited in the article, for feedback. This will be part of the basis for our editorial decision concerning whether the review is ready to be published or needs revisions.

A survey in the biosemiotic community will be conducted in preparation of each review article. The associated questionnaire, which is to be returned to me as handling editor, will be distributed to a wide range of biosemioticians, including but not necessarily restricted to/via the members of the editorial board and advisory board of Biosemiotics, the biosemiotics email list (biosemiotics@lists.ut.ee), the board members of the International Society for Biosemiotic Studies (ISBS), the board members of the International Society of Code Biology (ISCB), and the Biosemiosis blog (http://biosemiosis.blogspot.com/).

The invited author(s) will in each case be tasked with describing the outcomes of the survey associated with their review article, and to do so systematically and in an unbiased manner. However, when it comes to synthesis and suggestions, they will have the freedom to propose their own view even if it contradicts the general/popular understanding. In the writing process, all assigned authors are expected to conduct an extensive literature review on their own as well.

All respondents to the first survey in the biosemiotic community are, as part of the survey, invited to propose specific terms to review. Suitable terms should be quite concisely used by several biosemioticians, and if the terms are in more general usage as well, the biosemiotic usage of the terms should somehow stand out from general usage.

The deadline for returning the attached questionnaire is December 15^th. It should be sent to my email address (mortentoennessen AT gmail.com or alternatively morten.tonnessen AT uis.no).

My best,

Morten Tønnessen

Co-Editor-in-Chief of Biosemiotics

PS: The questionnaire is available via my Academia.edu page, here.

Why I joined the ISCB (a call for unity among biosemioticians)

The ISCB, the International Society for Code Biology, was constituted/incorporated in Ferrara, Italy, on November 28th 2012, with the following Governing Board/founding members: 

• Marcello Barbieri (president)
• Jan-Hendrik Hofmeyr (vice-president)
• Almo Farina (secretary)
• Peter Wills (treasurer)
• Stefan Artmann
• Joachim De Beule
• Peter Dittrich
• Dennis Görlich
• Stefan Kühn
• Chris Ottolenghi
• Liz Stillwaggon Swan
• Morten Tønnessen [me]

In an email November 30th announcing the establishment of the society, Marcello Barbieri wrote:

Code Biology is the study of all codes of life with the standard methods of science, and this makes of it the sole discipline that can prove the existence of semiosis in all living systems. Its purpose is nothing less than the rewriting of biology in order to include in it the countless codes that appeared after the genetic code and before the codes of culture, together with their theoretical implications. This is the challenge that lies ahead and this letter is announcing the beginning of that momentous enterprise. 

Applications for membership of the Code Biology Society are welcome from scholars of all relevant disciplines, including biology, philosophy, semiotics, cognitive science, information theory, linguistics, anthropology and ecology.

Marcello asked me whether I would be willing to be a founding member of the ISCB in an email October 16th. I replied that my long-time collaborators in Tartu "remain important colleagues and contacts for me, and that is how I would like it to go on as well." Furthermore:

In principle I am indeed interested in being a founding member of the ISCB. But there are conditions. First, before putting my name on any list I would like to see the statutes, or a draft of them, to get a sense of what the society is about and how it will work. Second, you should be aware that I am a person who speaks his mind even when in minority, and in situations such as the one in the ISBS this last year I might feel responsible to speak out (particularly if noone else does), no matter who is in charge and no matter who does things I find worthy of criticism. What I treasure is particularly organisational democrazy, scholarly pluralism, and constructive theoretical synthesis. 

Now, one reason to decline your invitation would be that it is likely that some biosemiotic scholars will misunderstand what me being part of the ISCB implies. Noteworthy, it could be perceived as sidetaking – siding with you personally (against Jesper) or preferring code biology to other kinds of biosemiotics. Therefore, let me make it absolutely clear: I treasure being undogmatic and open-minded, and I do not side with specific persons (only with ideas and principles). I want to contribute to holding all biosemioticians to certain standards, in terms both scientific and organisational. I think that several code biologists, including you, do a lot of valuable biosemiotic work (and I would like to take advantage of that in my own work, and when natural by way of direct cooperation). That is why I am interested in being a founding member of the ISCB. To avoid misunderstandings, however, I would without doubt feel the need to write in public (perhaps in a forum or on a discussion list, or at the very least in my academic blog Utopian Realism) what it implies, and what it does not imply, that I have become a member of the ISCB. My aim would be to not close any doors, and to maintain and further develop contact with interesting biosemioticians of all kinds.

I added, amongst other things, that "[t]ruly constructive synthesis is always desirable, but "compromises" motivated by reaching agreement only is more likely to be contraproductive. The key point at this stage is to aim systematically for constructive synthesis and not to block any ideas simply because they derive from the "wrong" persons".

In reply to my email, Marcello wrote that all that I had written was "perfectly acceptable".