Academic news in brief VI - Tartu/Tallinn events April 1-8

April 1-7 I was in Tartu, and 7-8 in Tallinn.
---------------------------------------------------------------

1) Thursday April 1st the deadline for submitting abstracts to the special issue of Hortus Semioticus "Semiotics of nature" expired. All in all we received 3 English language abstracts. We expect to see them all materialize.

-

2) Friday April 2nd I presented the 30m PP "Territory vs. confinement: The Umwelten of free-range vs. captive wolves" at a 6 hour Research seminar in zoosemiotics and animal representations.
-

3) During the seminar, I agreed with Silver RATTASEPP and Nelly MÄEKIVI to include the latter (possibly as a replacement of the former) in the planned co-work with Estonian wolf ethologist Ilmar ROOTSI. An initial meeting has yet to take place - perhaps in June.

-

4) After the seminar, researchers of the project Dynamical zoosemiotics and animal representations had a meeting (at Vilde) where we first of all made plans for the April 2011 conference Zoosemiotics and animal representations. I agreed to co-edit the proceedings (expected spring 2012) with Timo MARAN, which we aim to get published in book form by an international publisher. The proceedings will envelop selected conference contributions only.

-

5) Monday April 5th I guest-lectured in Riin MAGNUS' English language MA course in ecosemiotics. The topic was "More-than-human needs: The needs of the living". We discussed two papers:

- Arne NÆSS & Ivar MYSTERUD: "Philosophy of wolf policies (I): General principles and prelimenary exploration of selected norms"

- Alf HORNBORG: "Vital signs: An ecosemiotic perspective on the human ecology of Amazonia"

-
6) After the seminar I discussed the topic of animal play during lunch with MA student Arlene TUCKER. She'll write a term paper on fish play.
-

7) I then met with Riin MAGNUS to prepare our Hortus Semioticus interview with Kalevi KULL.

-

8) Tuesday April 6th I met 2 hours with visiting professor Walter GULICK for consultation. I am a student in his course "The philosophy of Michael POLANYI". Polyani seems quite useful for my thesis work etc.

-

9) After reading another chapter in GULICK's forthcoming POLANYI reader - which we use as course material - I went to class (generally I take this course as a reading course. A term paper will have to be conducted in May).

-

10) A while after the course, I returned to Department of semiotics to conduct the interview on biosemiotics with Kalevi KULL, together with Riin MAGNUS. 1hr50min of recordings.

-

11) Finally, in Tallinn, Wednesday April 7th, I met with Allan GROMOV in Keskkonnaministeerium, the Estonian Ministry of the Environment, to discuss possible cooperation on climate issues.

---------------------------------------------------------------
You'll find the first five "Academic news in brief" postings here.