Attestation review completed - 4th year attested positively

Today at 2.50 p.m. Estonian time I was scheduled to be treated by the attestation review committee at the Department of Semiotics, University of Tartu, and I received a phone call through Skype a bit earlier. For 10 minutes I reported about the last academic year, and answered a few questions from the committee and its head Timo Maran. My supervisor Kalevi Kull expressed concern for me health (last week I received alarming news about a new possible chronic diagnosis, related to Morbus Crohns, which I already have - I am currently being tested for this new diagnosis), and asked me not to work too much, and to make sure to have some rest as well. Since I have published substantially this last academic year (cf. also a post on my progress report), I could easily deliver a collection of articles, and focus on writing an introduction. My plan, however, remains to submit a monograph. Asked why by the committee, I replied that I am still developing ideas of substance that have not been expressed in my shorter publications.

A couple of hours later I received an email from the secretary of the department, Ulvi Urm, with the news that all 15 PhD students up for review have been attested positively.

The only thing that remains, then, before I can apply for doctoral degree (hopefully early September), is to finish my dissertation.

Attestation review 2010/2011

This night I finished my annual attestation review report, or more presicely progress review, as a doctoral student at University of Tartu's Department of Semiotics (8pp). This is the fourth and last time I do so, given that I intend to finish writing over the summer and submit my dissertation in early September.

The meeting of the attestation review committee takes place Tuesday July 12th. I have applied not to be present in person.

Stats for the academic year 2010/2011:
* 6 presentations at international conferences, 3 cases of roundtable participation and chairing, 2 further presentations
* 11+1 academic publications, 7 popular publications

Attestation review: Reported publications

This year's attestation review for doctoral students at the Department of semiotics will take place July 12. Today was the deadline for submitting all publications from this academic year, so that the attestation committee will have the chance to read them (it is the first time this procedure is followed). A lot of my publications have appeared the last year (totalling 170 pages or so, not including texts edited):

Published July/August 2010 and not mentioned in the attestation review for 2009/2010 under "C. Scheduled for publication the summer of 2010":

— Tønnessen, Morten 2010. A Stroll Around the Worlds of Zoosemioticians and Other Animals. Book review. Semiotica issue 181 (August 2010): 317-325 (online version, published August 24, 2010: DOI: 10.1515/semi.2010.047). [note that page numbers in the attached text were not final]

— Tønnessen, Morten and Riin Magnus 2010. The Bio-Translator – Interview with Professor in Biosemiotics Kalevi Kull. Hortus Semioticus 6: 77-103. Includes full bibliography of Kalevi Kull’s biosemiotic publications.

— Tønnessen, Morten; Riin Magnus and Nelly Mäekivi 2010. Editors’ Foreword to the Special Issue Semiotics of Nature. Hortus Semioticus 6: 1-6 (includes Estonian version, "Toimetajate Eessõna").

Published within the academic year 2010/2011 (September 2010 to June 2011):

— Tønnessen, Morten 2010a*. Guest aditor, along with Kati Lindström, of a special issue of Biosemiotics (Springer), vol. 3, no. 3 (December 2010); entitled Semiotics of Perception. 136 pp.

— Tønnessen, Morten 2010b*. Steps to a Semiotics of Being. Biosemiotics 3.3: 375-392 (online version, published April 30, 2010: DOI: 10.1007/s12304-010-9074-0)

— Tønnessen, Morten 2010c*. Wolf Land. Biosemiotics 3.3: 289-297 (online version, published April 23, 2010: DOI: 10.1007/s12304-010-9077-x).

— Tønnessen, Morten 2010d. The Global Species. New formations: a journal of culture/theory/politics 69 (Special Issue guest-edited by Ashley Dawson, Imperial Ecologies): 98-110. Featured as additional content in Encyclopaedia Britannica (www.britannica.com).

— Tønnessen, Morten 2010e. Is a Wolf wild as Long as it Does Not Know that It Is Being Thoroughly Handled? Humanimalia – a journal of human/animal interface studies 2(1) (Fall 2010): 1-8 (http://www.depauw.edu/humanimalia/Tonnesen).

— Tønnessen, Morten 2010f. The Legality and Ethical Legitimacy of Wolf Hunting in Scandinavia. Pp. 65-72 in the Research seminar report 52 of the Scandinavian Council for Criminology.

— Tønnessen, Morten and Dinda L. Gorlée 2010. Da Lotman og semiotikken kom til Norge [When Lotman and semiotics came to Norway]. Pp 258-259 in Turid Farbregd and Øyvind Rangøy (eds.): Estland og Norge i fortid og nåtid – Norsk-estisk forening 25 år [Estonia and Norway past and present – Norwegian-Estonian Society 25 years]. Oslo: Norsk-estisk forening. [not attached - in Norwegian]

— Tønnessen, Morten and Kati Lindström 2010*. Being in the World of the Living – Semiotic Perspectives: Introduction to the special issue Semiotics of Perception. Co-written with Kati Lindström. Biosemiotics 3.3: 257-261 (online version, published April 20, 2010: DOI: 10.1007/s12304-010-9073-1).

— Tønnessen, Morten 2011a. I, Wolf: The Ecology of Existence. Pp. 315-333 in Johannes Servan and Ane Faugstad Aarø (eds.): Environment, Embodiment and Gender, Bergen: Hermes Text.

— Tønnessen, Morten 2011b. Mapping Human Impact – Expanding Horizons: Interdisciplinary Integration. Pp. 93-106 in Tiina Peil (ed.): The Space of Culture - the Place of Nature in Estonia and Beyond (= Approaches to Cultural Theory vol. 1). Tartu: Tartu University Press. [note that page numbers in the attached text were not final]

— Tønnessen, Morten and John Deely 2011. The Semioethics Interviews III: John Deely: Human Understanding in the Age of Global Awareness. Pp. 171-189 in the edited collection Semiotics: Theory and Applications (New York: Nova Science Publishers) [only word file is attached, since the ebook is secured. Final publication date: June 1, 2011].

* appeared as online publication in the academic year 2009/2010; in print 2010/2011 (December 2010)

To be published the summer of 2011:

— Tønnessen, Morten 2011d. Semiotics of Being and Uexküllian Phenomenology. Chapter 27 in Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka (ed.): Phenomenology/Ontopoiesis Retrieving Geo-Cosmic Horizons of Antiquity (= Analecta Husserliana CX).

PhD time schedule confirmed, formalities settled

As mentioned I have changed my time schedule for completing my PhD. Today I met with my supervisor Kalevi Kull, who allied with department secretary and superhero Ulvi Urm informed me about the possible formal ways of spending the summer writing and submitting my dissertation at the very beginning of the autumn semester, early September. We concluded that the best solution is that I apply for academic leave mid-August (after receiving the two final months of the Estonian state grant), effective from September 1st. This implies that I will have to report for this year's attestation review, where I will be expected to document that I am practically done by providing a collection of academic articles comparable to a dissertation (though my dissertation will be a monograph). In formal terms I will, following this procedure and applying for a doctoral degree in the very beginning of the autumn semester, have completed my PhD studies on time, after 4 years exactly.

Academic news in brief VIII

1. The April 2011 conference Zoosemiotics and Animal Representations, for which I am part of the organizing team, has announced publicly its four keynote speakers: Colin Allen, Jesper Hoffmeyer, Graham Huggan and David Rothenberg.

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2. The 10th Gathering in Biosemiotics, to be arranged in Braga, Portugal June 22-27th, has some time ago announced its program, where my talk is scheduled for presentation Friday June 25th at 9-9.30. The abstract of "We The Living: The Reception of Uexküll in Norwegian Ecophilosophy" is to be found at page 42 in the abstract book.

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3. Since the last "Academic news in brief" was posted May 7th, I have conducted further Michael Polanyi work papers, and thereby, as it turned out, concluded the course work in The philosophy of Michael Polanyi. I have started reading Marjorie Grene, and expect to write a paper at some not too distant point in time on Polanyi and Grene and their relevance for matters of biosemiotics (and vice-versa).

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4. Quite some time ago, I was told my first blurb ever was not included after all in Paul Cobley (ed.): Realism for the 21st Century. A John Deely Reader, published October 2009.

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5. Monday - two days ago - I wrote my Attestation Review report for my third year as a Ph.D. student (progress review report), which includes a Revised plan for research and study for the academic year 2010/2011. 13 pp. The attestation review meeting takes place Thursday 17th of June, but I do not have the chance to be there in person.