Interview "Making Meaning With Morten And Martin" published in Hortus Semioticus blog

The interview "Making Meaning With Morten And Martin", conducted by Thorolf van Walsum, has been published in the blog of Tartu´s student journal Hortus Semioticus, featuring me and Martin Avíla (Konstfack, Stockholm). At about 4.000 words, its is a quite long interview.

Interviewed for Hortus Semioticus blog

This evening I was interviewed, along with Professor of design and designer Martín Avíla, by Thorolf J. van Walsum for the blog of University of Tartu´s Department of Semiotics´ student journal Hortus Semioticus.

Bibliographical references - 'Semiotics of nature'

Here's bibliographical data for my contributions to the below-mentioned special issue of Hortus Semioticus (no. 6 - 2010), on Semiotics of nature:

Riin Magnus, Nelly Mäekivi and Morten Tønnessen 2010. "Editors' foreword to the Special Issue Semiotics of Nature". Hortus Semioticus 6 (SI on Semiotics of nature): 1-6 (incl. Estonian version, "Toimetajate Eessõna").

Riin Magnus and Morten Tønnessen 2010. "The Bio-Translator - Interview with Professor in Biosemiotics Kalevi Kull". Includes bibliography of Kalevi Kull’s biosemiotic publications. Hortus Semioticus 6 (SI on Semiotics of nature): 77-103.

Special Issue 'Semiotics of nature' published

HORTUS SEMIOTICUS (no. 6)
SPECIAL ISSUE ON THE SEMIOTICS OF NATURE
Guest editors: Riin Magnus, Nelly Mäekivi and Morten Tønnessen

Dear readers,

We are delighted to announce that the journal Hortus Semioticus has now published a special issue on the semiotics of nature. All together with 7 papers, a foreword, an interview, Meditationes Semioticae and 2 overview articles, this issue is almost exclusively in English. The papers of contributing MA and PhD students are all original papers written within a scientific framework which encapsuls the topics of meaning, value, communication, signification, representation, and cognition in and of nature.
1) Nelly Mäekivi, Riin Magnus and Morten Tønnessen: Editors foreword to the Special Issue Semiotics of Nature
2) Remo Gramigna: Augustine’s legacy for the history of zoosemiotics
3) John Haglund and Johan Blomberg: The meaning-sharing network
4) Silver Rattasepp: The idea of the extended organism in the 20th century history of ideas
5) Sara Cannizzaro: On form, function and meaning: working out the foundations of biosemiotics
6) Svitlana Biedarieva: Reflections in the Umwelten
7) Arlene Tucker: A metaphor is a metaphor
8) Patrick Masius: What are elephants doing in a Nazi concentration camp? The meaning of nature in the human catastrophe
9) Riin Magnus and Morten Tønnessen: The bio-translator. Interview with professor in biosemiotics Kalevi Kull (with his complete biosemiotic bibliography)
10) Meditationes Semioticae – this time by Kaie Kotov: Do you mind? Does it matter? Semiotics as a science of noosphere
11) Ülevaade: Acta Semiotica Estica VII

We hope that for our readers and contributors, these papers will encourage even more interest in the field, and open yet new horizons.

Academic news in brief X

1. The Sydney workshop 'History and philosophy of ethology', to be arranged at Macquarie University, has been rescheduled to February 19-21st, 2010 (cf. previous post). I have started pondering what more I can get done while in Australia.

2. The editorial work with the Special Issue of Hortus Semioticus 'Semiotics of Nature' is about to be concluded - the issue is now entering production.

3. I have started writing my thesis (though that threshold qua point in time could be defined in various ways).

4. The last week I have started planning the remaining field work and research stays of my case study on Norwegian wolf management. First out is a trip to Langedrag mountain farm and wildlife park (captive wolves) and Rendalen, Hedmark (sheep farms).

5. My debate article 'Forskningens formål' (The purpose of science) was printed in the Norwegian national daily Aftenposten August 6th. Norwegian text here.

6. The same day I sent a chronicle entitled 'Ulven på Sørlandet' (The wolf in the South) to the regional newspaper Fædrelandsvennen. This is my first comment to the wandering wolf that has been visiting our region (where there have not been wolves since the mid-80ies, as far as I can remember) the last few weeks, and the calls for its death.

7. Tomorrow I am heading for Bergen, where the 60th International Congress of Phenomenology is taking place the next few days (cf. previous posts).

8. I have arranged tickets for my next visit to Estonia, which will take place September 5th-9th (5-8 in Tartu, 8-9 in Tallinn).

***

Last 'Academic news in brief': No. IX.

Call for papers: Semiotics of nature

Hortus Semioticus has published a call for papers concerning our special issue 'Semiotics of nature', for which I am one of the guest editors. Instructions for authors are found here.

CALL FOR PAPERS: SPECIAL ISSUE ON THE SEMIOTICS OF
NATURE
Guest editors: Riin Magnus, Nelly Mäekivi and Morten Tønnessen
/

Hortus Semioticus is an online academic journal of semiotics - the study of signs and sign processes. In Tartu, Estonia, where the student journal is based, nature has long accompanied culture as a topic for semiotic inquiry (cf. the fields known as biosemiotics, ecosemiotics, and zoosemiotics). The driving force behind the journal is curiosity and the joy of inquiry.
/

Around the summer of 2010 the journal will publish a special issue on the semiotics of nature (meaning living nature, rather than physical nature). We are inviting papers on the topics of meaning, value, communication, signification, representation, and cognition in and of nature (ranging from the cellular level to the global scene). We encourage originality within a scientific framework which emphazises the semiotic aspects of the life processes alluded to above. Not least, we strongly welcome submissions from other fields (besides, beyond or beneath semiotics). Graduate students and young scholars are particularly encouraged to submit.
/

Contributions (5-20 pages) should be written in English or Estonian and sent to the guest editors by May 1st, 2010. Prior to that we're expecting an abstract (100-200 words) plus 3-5 keywords by April 1 2010. Please find further instructions attached.

/
Please submit your proposal to the guest editors: riin.magnus@gmail.com (Riin Magnus), nellymaekivi@gmail.com (Nelly Mäekivi) and mortentoennessen@gmail.com (Morten Tønnessen)

A couple of things

Here during my current visit in Tartu, I have met with my supervisor (today), with Timo Maran (heading the research project "Dynamical zoosemiotics and animal representations", for which I do zoosemiotic research), and with Riin Magnus and Nelly Mäekivi, with whom I am guest-editing a special issue of Hortus Semioticus (both yesterday).

/

Of the outcome: Preliminary plans about the date of the first in a series of regular workshops on dynamical zoosemiotics and animal representations, and a soon-to-be distributed call for papers for our special issue on the semiotics of nature, aimed at graduate students and young scholars in particular.

Semioethics interview in Nova's semiotics anthology

I have submitted an abstract entitled “The Semioethics Interviews III: John Deely: Human Understanding in the Age of Global Awareness” to Nova Science Publishers' planned anthology Semiotics: Theory and Applications, upon invitation.

The first interview in this series was published in Hortus Semioticus. The second and fourth are still to find their places of publication (interested, anyone?).

Co-editing of special issue on biosemiotics

Yesterday I agreed to co-edit a special issue of Hortus Semioticus on biosemiotics (zoosemiotics etc. included) with Nelly Mäekivi and Riin Magnus.

The special issue, which will feature articles in both English and Estonian and is expected to appear as no. 7, 2010 (after no. 5 is published this year and no. 6 is published as a regular number in the spring of 2010), will include an interview with Kalevi Kull (link inactive at the time of writing this...), conducted by Riin Magnus and me.