Academic news in brief

1. ENCOUNTER WITH A PUBLISHER
At the Copenhagen congress on climate change I ran into a publisher from Springer.
- You don't happen to be giving books away for free today, do you? I said, hinting at 'Surviving 1,000 Centuries: Can We Do It?' in the book shelf.
- Of course, said the publisher - if you can tell me about the next book you plan to publish.
I am now preparing a book proposal entitled 'The Growth Crisis: Norwegian Ecophilosophy and the Growth Economy', an idea I originally conceived of in terms of a Norwegian publication only. I am very pleased that Springer shows interest in my work - not least since it has been the publisher of many of the works by Arne Næss and Jakob von Uexküll. In that company - I can feel at home.

2. ENCOUNTERS WITH SCHOLARS
Roger Parent recently visited Semiootika Osakond from Canada. I was there for three classes of his course on The semiotics of cultural conflicts (a course which greatly inspired my wife, who now appears to be just as semiotic as myself). Today I missed out on Martin Walter's lecture on Poinsot, due to some confusion about summer/winter time - but we went for lunch (where I had a delicious ceasar salad).

3. NEW FORMATIONS
I have agreed to submit an article to New Formations' special issue on Imperial Ecologies. My article will address topics of globalization from an ecosemiotic (and largely historical) point of view (with a view to the past as well as to the future), with emphasis of human settlers and the ecology of capitalism.