To co-write chapter "Ecosemiotics" for Elsevier´s "Encyclopedia of Ecology"

I have agreed to co-write a chapter on "Ecosemiotics", as first author, for the 3rd edition of Elsevier´s Encyclopedia of Ecology with Søren Nors Nielsen. The chapter is due in 2024.

Introduction chapter for animal representations book finished

This last Friday - or more accurately during the night between Friday and Saturday - I finished writing the introduction chapter for the Rodopi anthology The Semiotics of Animal Representations. The introduction, "Introduction: The Semiotics of Animal Representations", totalling some 7.800 words, is co-written with Kadri Tüür (and the collection co-edited with her). The introduction gives a fairly extensive coverage of how zoosemiotics and related disciplines can be made use of as foundational for the more general study of humans' various representations of animals.

Our submission of the full manuscript is now awaiting language editing of the introduction and some further minute tasks.

Schedule change for talk at Nordic semiotics conference

The program for the seventh conference of the Nordic Association for Semiotic Studies, to be arranged in Lund, Sweden, May 6-8 (cf. previous posts), has been revised. My oral presentation "Perception and the levels of biosemiosis" has been rescheduled to 16.30-17.00 on Friday 6th of May.

Application for research project 2011-2016

I am involved in an application for the prospective research project "Environmental Semiotics: Theory and applications in changing culture and environment". Timo Maran is the project's Principal Investigator and head. Through the project, which would span over the years 2011-2016 (until I'm 40...), I would have a research position (full work load), with the title 'Extraordinary researcher'. Other scholars involved include Jelena Grigorjeva, Kati Lindström, Riin Magnus, Ene-Reet Soovik, Renata Sõukand and Kadri Tüür.

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If the application proves successful, it will imply that I establish ties to the University of Tartu for the years after I have completed my PhD (beyond my obligations partaking in the research project Dynamical Zoosemiotics and Animal Representations, until 2012).

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.

Most quoted biosemiotic works

The list below is compiled from data of Google Scholar. It includes all works of biosemiotic character of the authors listed cited 50 times and more in their system.

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BIOSEMIOTIC WORKS

1. Jesper HOFFMEYER: Signs of meaning in the universe (1996): 336

2. Thomas SEBEOK: Animal communication: A communication network model for languages is applied to signalling behavior in animals (1965): 158

3. Jesper HOFFMEYER and Claus EMMECHE: Code-duality and the semiotics of nature (1991): 152

4. Marcello BARBIERI: The organic codes - an introduction to semantic biology (2003): 137

5. Claus EMMECHE and Jesper HOFFMEYER. From language to nature: The semiotic metaphor in biology (1991): 95

6. Marcello BARBIERI: The organic codes (1998): 88

7. Jesper HOFFMEYER: Biosemiotics: Towards a new synthesis in biology (1997): 87

8. Kalevi KULL: Biosemiotics in the twentieth century - a view from biology (1999): 67

9. Various: A semiotic perspective on the sciences: Steps toward a new paradigm (1984) 59
10. Kalevi KULL: Semiotic ecology: Different natures in the semiosphere: 57
11. Thomas SEBEOK: Coding in the evolution of signalling behavior (1962): 54

11. Claus EMMECHE: Defining life as a semiotic phenomenon (1998): 54

13. Thomas Sebeok and DJ UMIKER-SEBEOK (eds.): Biosemiotics: The semiotic web 1991 (1992): 53

RELATED WORKS
1. Claus EMMECHE: The garden in the machine - the emerging science of artificial life: 166+53
2. Claus EMMECHE, S. KØPPE and Frederik STJERNFELT: Explaining emergence - towards an ontology of levels (1997): 144
3. Thomas SEBEOK: How animals communicate (1977): 140
4. Claus EMMECHE, Frederik STJERNFELT et al.: Levels, emergence, and three three versions of downward causation (2000): 105
5. NA BAAS and Claus EMMECHE: On emergence and explanation (1997): 98
6. Thomas A. SEBEOK: The Clever Hans phenomenon: Communication with horses, whales, apes, and people (1981): 93
7. TA SEBEOK and M DANESI: The forms of meaning - Modeling systems theory and semiotic analisis (2000): 85
8. Thomas SEBEOK: Global semiotics (2001): 78
9. PB ANDEREN, Claus EMMECHE and NO Finnemann: Downwards causation: Minds, bodies and matter (2000): 77
10. Thomas SEBEOK and DJ Umiker-SEBEOK: Speaking of apes: A critical anthology of two-way communication with man (1980): 65

In comparison, Umberto Eco's "A theory of semiotics" is cited 2.566 times.

Paper to Bergen conference/Analecta Husserliana

Yesterday I finished the full-length paper for my forthcoming presentation at the 60th international congress of phenomenology (Bergen, August 10-13), entitled 'Semiotics of being and Uexküllian phenomenology' - 20pp. Like the other papers, it will be considered for publication in Analecta Husserliana.

Contents

Uexküllian phenomenology

Eco-existentialism, eco-phenomenology, and semiotics of
nature

• a) The eco-existentialism of Peter Wessel Zapffe
• b) The eco-phenomenology of David Abram and Ted
  Toadvine
• c) Semiotics of nature (biosemiotics, ecosemiotics,
  zoosemiotics)

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
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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.
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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.
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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.

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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).

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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.