Thursday 9 July 2009

Brief report from Gathering in Biosemiotics 9, Prague

The 9th Gathering in biosemiotics took place in Prague, The Czech republic, June 30th-July 4th. 48 presentations were scheduled in the programme (abstract book here), a few of which were cancelled.

Some talks I enjoyed (I did not attend all talks):
Edward BAENZIGER: "Photosemiosis in orchids"
Eliseo FERNÁNDEZ: "Biosemiotics and the relational turn in biology"
Jonathan HOPE: "Umwelträume and multi-sensory integration"
Timo MARAN and Karel KLEISNER: "Semiotic selection, cooption, and good old Darwin: Is there a common basis for the explanation of mimicry, sexual selection, and domestication?"

My talk, "On contrapuntuality: Semiotic niche vs. ontological niche: the case of the Scandinavian wolf population" was given Friday 3rd of July - and went well, with positive response and useful feedback.


I further enjoyed the spirited company of (among others) Myrdene ANDERSON, Luis Emileo BRUNI, Sara CANNIZZARO, Paul COBLEY, Stephen PAIN, Riin MAGNUS, Rex ALEXANDER and Prisca AUGUSTYN.

Augustyn held an interesting workshop on Uexküll translation (she is currently translating Theoretische Biologie (1928), among other texts). The gathering also featured a lively roundtable on the concept of meaning within biology, to which there were 20 suggestions for definitions.

The next gatherings will be arranged the following places (main responsible in parenthesis):
2010: Portugal ... (João Carlos MAJOR)
2011: New York (Victoria ALEXANDER)
2012: Tartu (Kalevi KULL)

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