Ecosemiotics paper "Ecological semiotics, lifeworld perspectives, and sustainability" accepted for presentation at NASS XIV

I have been informed by the organizers of the 14th Conference of the Nordic Association for Semiotic Studies, organized jointly with the 15th Annual Lotman Days with the theme “Creativity – Complexity – Intelligence”, which is to take place in Tallinn, Estonia, June 11–13, 2025, that my paper "Ecological semiotics, lifeworld perspectives, and sustainability" has been accepted for oral presentation.

PS: I am part of the scientific committee of the conference, but of course we don´t evaluate our own abstracts.

Bibliographical reference for Lotman piece

Here's the bibliographical reference for 'Da Lotman og semiotikken kom til Norge' [When Lotman and semiotics came to Norway], which I got to see in print for the first time last Monday:

Dinda L. Gorlée and Morten Tønnessen 2010. "Da Lotman og semiotikken kom til Norge". Pp 258-259 in Turid Farbregd and Øyvind Rangøy (Eds.): Estland og Norge i fortid og nåtid - Norsk-estisk forening 25 år. Oslo: Norsk-estisk forening.

The article includes a picture (in Dinda Gorlée's ownership) from Sebeok and Lotman's encounter in Bergen in 1986.

Estonian-Norwegian Festschrift to appear September 16th

Norsk-estisk forening (= Norra-Eesti Ühing), the Norwegian-Estonian association, has announced that its Festschrift will be launched September 16th, at an event in Oslo. It has been named "Estland og Norge i fortid og nåtid - Norsk-estisk forening 25 år" [Estonia and Norway in the past and today - Norsk-estisk forening 25 years].

Cf. previous posts about my joint article "Da Lotman og semiotikken kom til Norge", co-written with Dinda Gorlée.

Festschrift to be published in June

The Festschrift wherein will appear my piece on Juri Lotman (and his encounter with Sebeok in Bergen), co-written with Dinda Gorlée, will appear in print not in February, as originally planned, but only in June.

Lotman/Semiotics of technology

What you find below was posted by me last week in the community SemioComm on LiveJournal.

I have just read "Technological progress as a problem in the study of culture" (Lotman 1988 [Russian], tr. to English 1991). A very rich text, dealing not least with various technologies of language (writing, printing etc.). Early on, Lotman attacks Thomas Kuhn's view that "[o]utside the laboratory everyday affairs usually continue as before" whenever scientific revolutions occur (quoted p. 781 of Lotman's article). Here, Lotman portrays himself in contrast with Kuhn - though Kuhn is in other contexts known exactly for emphasizing not only the the social workings of science, but also the way in which scientific intuition and common cultural intuition interact - think only of his analysis of the transition from a heliocentric to a geocentric world view (I don't know how much Lotman read of Kuhn?). At that instant, Kuhn defended the view that it was somewhat rational of the scholars of the day not immediately to adopt the new, revolutionary ideas - because they actually for quite some time contradicted common and accepted knowledge, as well as the everyday intuitions of the day.

As Lotman stresses, the cultural impact of scientific revolutions oftentimes takes time to materialize. "There is a repeated pattern to the immediate consequences of a technological change: having acquired new powerful means, society first attempts to use them for old ends", he writes (p. 782-3), "increasing its possibilities only quantitatively". Lotman's examples of ancient bureaucracies are amusing. His simple observation that the invention of writing made much more advanced architecture and infrastructure administrable is intruiging. In consequence, we can theorize (with Lotman) that the advent of writing also made empires possible. Statehood, then, is from this theoretical perspective a (actual, materialized, factual (though not necessary)) consequence of the written word.

Similarly prolific are Lotman's observations regarding elements in the emergence of capitalism. The technology of printing - enabling mass publication - is a central example, which further points to the modern phenomena of mass hysteria, mass mentality etc (as well as, as Lotman notes, expressions of individualism and eruptions of creativity). The individual and the mass - the individual as representative of the mass - the individual in opposition to the mass (thereby reaffirming the centrality of the mass, nevertheless)... Limitless optimism which can any given moment turn into its opposite, bottomless pessimism...

And I ask myself: This global (or US?) culture of fear and hysteria ... After 9/11 in particular, perhaps ... how is it related to our most recent advances in mass communication? How is language changing today, in cultural terms? This, I realize, is not a new debate... Perhaps the swine flu "pandemia" would represent a good case study. Have we been infected by modern language?

Festschrift contribution submitted

The festschrift contribution of me and Dinda Gorlee, now entitled "Da Lotman og semiotikken kom til Norge" (When Lotman and semiotics came to Norway), has been finished and submitted to the editors.

Lotman piece to be co-written by Dinda L. Gorlée

I have agreed with Dinda L. Gorlée (the Netherlands) that we will cowrite my (now our) aforementioned 2 pp contribution to a Norwegian-Estonian Festschrift, due for next spring. She was a central figure in Norwegian semiotics in the mid-1980s - the only time (so far) semiotics has flourished much in Norway.

Course work on Uexküll - meetings at UiA - the philosophy business

I'm following the TÜ course "Readings of Juri Lotman and Jakob von Uexküll", and the first half, considering the work of Uexküll, has now finished. A couple of days ago I submitted the (first) term paper, "An Uexküllian Theory of Evolution?" (7 pp). I have further - since I literarily take the course as a reading course, from a distance - submitted 6 c3 pp papers with Q&As, covering the reading material.

“Uexküll and evolution” for many sounds like a topic that spells out a contradiction in terms. That, I believe, does not necessarily have to be the case. Whereas some biosemioticians (e.g. Stjernfelt 2001) have asserted that Uexküll was anti-evolution, others (e.g. Salthe 2001; Kull 2004) have concluded that he was anti-Darwinian, but not hostile to the idea of evolution as such. Here I must agree with the latter group, as I hope will shine through in the rest of this exposition. And not only do I think Uexküll was not anti-evolution (though, as I explain in Tønnessen 2009, he was programmatically not historically-minded) – more than that; I believe that an Uexküllian perspective might actually prove to be enriching within the field of evolutionary theory. There’s proof that Uexküll did not only have negative, but also positive, thought about evolution in his dictum (1928: 198) that “each new appearing functional cycle verifies [the appearance of] a new animal species” (my translation).

Meanwhile, the committee for the UiA Philosophy Forum has held its first meeting (this Monday).

So has - today - UiA's "Fagfilosofisk seksjon" (Academic philosophical section), consisting of the philosophers at Department of religion, philosophy and history. The topic, which has been discussed at one previous meeting as well and will be discussed further at the institute level in December, concerns establishing new (more advanced) courses in philosophy as part of a revised bachelor degree (which is today a bachelor in religion). One day, some say, we might offer a master in philosophy. That would truly be of great value for the philosophy milieu at UiA, and its attraction for students and scholars alike. Today only a one-year studium is offered (apart from the broader introductory course, Examen Philosophicum).

Meanwhile ... I have finished (yesterday) a catalogue, or leaflet (4 pp), presenting the paid services offered by my one-man company, SPØR FILOSOFEN (Ask the philosopher) - ranging from lectures and courses via writing and editing to consultancy activities. You'll find it on Scribd.

And thus the world advances...