NASS board meeting attended

Today I have attended the board meeting of the Nordic Association for Semiotic Studies (NASS), online. Topics included conference planning, and NASS representation in the International Association for Semiotic Studies (IASS).

Dates of 14th world congress of semiotics announced

The 14th world congress of semiotics, organized by the International Association for Semiotic Studies (IASS), will be held in Buenes Aires, Argentina, on September 9-13th 2019. "Trajectories" are mentioned as a thematic keyword for the congress - see congress homepage.

Paper "Uexküllian phenomenology" accepted to presentation in Kaunas

I have been informed that my abstract for the 13th IASS-AIS World Congress of Semiotics (Kaunas, June 26-30th) has been successfully reviewed by the scientific committee of the congress. This must concern my abstract for the session "Biosemiotics in dialogue", entitled "Uexküllian phenomenology".

Book "Animal umwelten in a changing world" featured on IASS webpage

The book Animal umwelten in a changing world, which I have co-authored and co-edited, is featured in a post on the webpage of International Association for Semiotic Studies (IASS).

13th World Congress of Semiotics to be held in Kaunas, Lithuania

in a recent communication from the International Association for Semiotic Studies (IASS), “Update on Bureau decisions and various issues arising for the Association in 2015", it is announced that the next World Congress of Semiotics (the 13th World Congress of Semiotics) will take place in Kaunas, Lithuania (in 2017). The 2019 world congress (the 14th World Congress of Semiotics) will likely be held in Argentina.

Proceedings chapter: "The changing imagery of the big bad wolf" - reference; errata

A brief article of mine, "The changing imagery of the big bad wolf", based on a conference presentation in 2009, has been published online (and on a CD) - in 2012, it appears. Abstract is available online, as is the full PDF.

Reference:

Tønnessen, Morten 2012. The changing imagery of the big bad wolf. Proceedings of the 10th World Congress of the International Association for Semiotic Studies (IASS/AIS) (Universidade da Coruña (Spain)), ISBN: 978-84-9749-522-6, pp. 1543–1548. 

Errata:

1. "Morten Tønnessen, University of Tartu, Moscow (Russia)": Not sure where this came from. Tartu, where I took my PhD, is in Estonia.

2. “Rendalen happens to be [Southern!] Norway’s biggest municipality, measured by land area."

"Animals in the Anthropocene" CFP posted on IASS webpage

The First Call For Papers for the international conference "Animals in the Anthropocene: Human-animal relations in a changing semiosphere" (Stavanger, Norway September 17-19th 2015) has been posted on the homepage of the International Association for Semiotic Studies (IASS) - see here.

Complete mess at IASS Executive Committee meeting - Paul Cobley new President, Kristian Bankov new Secretary General

Yesterday the Executive Committee of the International Association for Semiotic Studies (IASS-AIS) had its meeting to elect a new IASS board (all executive positions). The meeting took place during the 12th world congress of semiotics (Sofia, Bulgaria, September 16-20), and was attended by 50-60 Executive Committee members. I represented both Norway (along with Drude von der Fehr) and the Nordic Association for Semiotic Studies (NASS), and voted on behalf of both.

Paul Cobley was elected the new IASS President. He got my support after announcing a sensible, reform-oriented electoral program. Kristian Bankov was unanimously elected new Secretary General, after Massimo Leone withdrew his candidature. Both are elected for the period 2014-2019.

Like the IASS General Assembly held the day before, the meeting of the Executive Committee was unfortunately characterised by a selective and random approach to rule-following. I was embarassed at both occasions. At the General Assembly no proper financial report was presented, for instance - and the electoral procedure was a mess, and far from transparent. At the meeting of the Executive Committee, the Committe first decided with a clear majority that after two consecutive mandates, an elected official is not eligible for any position for the next 5-year period. Then, an hour or so later, a majority of the very same Committee elected Susan Petrilli as one of five Vice-Presidents (if only for 2 years), even though she was ineligible for any position according to the decision just made by 80% of those present. In other words: The Executive Committee voted on whether or not to follow its own rules, and a clear majority voted not to follow them.

A bit later two Treasurers (plus one Vice-Treasurer) were elected, since by mistake too many names had been put forward, and the Committee did not want to choose between them.

Adding to the unprofessional mess, at both occasions, was the fact that even though English, French and Spanish are all official languages of the IASS-AIS, at several points voting took place after the members had been informed e.g. just in French. At these instances half the audience did not know what was going on.

All this is funny at best, tragic at worst. The IASS is in desperate need of some simple professionalism.

IASS General Assembly - elected Norway, NASS representative despite Pago's resistance

The International Association for Semiotic Studies (IASS-AIS) held its General Assembly - the first since 2009 - two days ago, Wednesday September 17th, during the 12th world congress of semiotics (Sofia, Bulgaria, September 16-20).

After much ado, I was elected representative for Norway (along with Drude von der Fehr) and for the Nordic Association for Semiotic Studies (NASS) (along with Luis Emilio Bruni) in the IASS Executive Committee. The problems was due to the fact that the IASS Secretary General, José María Paz Pago, did not want to allow me and Drude to be nominated, despite the fact that no information whatsoever had been communicated in advance on how nominations should be made. Luckily the Assembly accepted the nominations even so. Just ahead of the meeting I had gathered a number of endorsements.

But Pago was not quite done. When the election itself took place, he read the name of the former Norwegian representative (John Ole Askedal), who was not there, instead of my name, and the President of IASS, Eero Tarasti, had to intervene by saying my name. I was appalled by Pago's attitude.

The election is for the period 2014-2019.

The Semiotics of Animal Representations featured on IASS homepage

Our book The Semiotics of Animal Representations (Rodopi 2014, eds. Kadri Tüür and myself) is presented on the webpage of the International Association for Semiotic Studies (IASS-AIS).

Biosemiotic ethics session placed in Theoretical semiotics; Semiotics in the interdisciplinary context

The session "Biosemiotic ethics", which I am organising at the upcoming World congress of semiotics (Sofia, Bulgaria, September 16-20), has by now been placed within two program categories, namely "Theoretical semiotics" as well as "Semiotics in the interdisciplinary context". See also the program in terms of all the current prospective sessions. Prospective contributors to the Biosemiotic ethics session can send an abstract straight to me (for instructions, see the session abstract).

See also:

Session at12th world congress of semiotics: "Biosemiotic ethics"

World congress of semiotics - Nanjing, China

The 11th world congress of semiotics will take place in Nanjing, China, October 5-9th, 2012, and has the general - and ambitious - theme Global semiotics: A bridge linking different civilizations. A conventional call for papers will follow later on, but a first call was made already around New Year.

Please send to us in your earlier convenience proposals or abstracts about any semiotic topic concerning nature, society and culture, especially with respect to the following fields:

1. General theory and philosophy;
2. Linguistics and logic;
3. Literature and arts;
4. History, sociology and anthropology;
5. Theories of film and video and media;
6. Cognitive and biosemiotic studies.

In the preliminary call for papers, it is stated that:

The Nanjing 11th World Congress of Semiotics will be the first IASS forum in history to be held outside Europe or the Americas. Substantially and symbolically it will provide semiotic scholars from all over the world with a suitable dialogic context for exploring the new orientation of global semiotics. In conjunction with the 11th IASS Congress, whose program will basically follow the rules and procedures established in the past IASS congresses, there will be also a parallel conference in Nanjing, the First China Semiotics Forum, which will provide additional opportunities for comparative-semiotic communication.