Philosophy lecturer - philosophy in Antiquity

Today I was asked to step in as a philosophy lecturer at the University of Agder, as responsible for the second half of their course "Antikkens filosofi" (Philosophy in Antiquity). I will start teaching this next Thursday - when week 42-46 has passed I'll have given five 3-hour classes (15 hours of teaching, seminar-style).

The topic matter of these classes/seminars will be the following three texts:
* Plato's The Republic - book 1 (Norwegian: Staten)
* Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (Norwegian: Den nikomakiske etikk)
* Augustine's On free choice of the will [De libero arbitrio] (Norwegian: Om den frie vilje)

The course represents 1/6 of UiA's one-year study in philosophy.

Oslo animals

Apropos Oslo - popularly called "Tigerstaden" (City of the tiger) - here's the tiger statue at Jernbarnetorvet (the railway square), photographed in the cosy Northern winter.

And here's the symbol of the state - the lion - in front of Stortinget, the Norwegian parliament. The parliament is routinely referred to as "Løvebakken" (loosely: Hill of the lion).

I expect to touch upon these exotic Norwegian creatures either in "The Cultural Semiotic of Wolves and Sheep" or "The Symbolic Construction of the Big Bad Wolf in Contemporary Scandinavia" (see Article for Signs).

Research visit: Oslo I

Monday to Wednesday October 11th-13th I'll conduct my first comprehensive research visit to Oslo (not counting my first brief visit in this respect to the National Library in May).

Plans for the 3-day visit include:
* research in the library of Statistics Norway
* research in the National Library of Norway
* and not least a meeting with Runar Næss (the man behind Animal Zoolution) - who is of great interest to me due to (a) his experience with socializing wolves and (b) his role as the founder of the pro-wolf activist organization/network Alpha-gruppen.

At a second research visit to Oslo, in November, I intend to meet with a number of relevant scholars and researchers.

Being an academic (3): Reporting

Being an academic is much like writing a well-structured article in a tradtional way: (1) First you tell what you're about to do, (2) then you do it, (3) and finally you tell what you just did.

Apropos (3): The last 10 days I've written two reports - the last quarterly report partaking in the research project "The Cultural Heritage of Environmental Spaces" (4pp), and an interim report partaking in the research project "Dynamical Zoosemiotics and Animal Representations".

State grant holder

I have been informed that the University of Tartu has decided that I am (as a PhD student at Department of Semiotics) to receive an Estonian state grant from October to December. The state grant is 6.000 Estonian Kroons (EEK) per month - approximately 3.100 NOK or 384 Euro.

The grant has not been given before because thus far I've received a monthly stipend partaking in the research project "The Cultural heritage of Environmental Spaces" (where my participation ended in September). If successful, an application for a new research project, "Environmental Semiotics: Theory and Applications in Changing Culture and Environment" would imply me being an 'Extraordinary researcher' with full work-load starting January 2011.

How is the University of Tartu ranked internationally?

I recently posted on what's the best university in Norway. Now what about my own university, Estonia's University of Tartu? Unlike in Norway's case, there's absolutely no doubt what's the best university in Estonia. But how does it rank internationally?
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Last year it was included for the first time in Times Higher Education - QS World University Rankings, as one of 600 universities (out of a total of 12.000 or so globally), cf. University of Tartu ranked among world's leading universities (and World-Class Education). The precise ranking was 501.-600. This year it's 551.-600. (note that the QS and THE have split - the latter ranking is of QS only). This year's Top 500 is listed and presented here.
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With that ranking, the University of Tartu is places clearly below the University of Oslo (Top 200), where I took my master in philosophy, but (as far as I know) clearly above the University of Agder, where I have been research assistant/advisor, and the University of Stavanger, where I am an examiner.

David Abram paper online

David Abram's 'The discourse of the birds' is now available on the webpage of the journal Biosemiotics (full access for subscribers only - alternatively, you can pay 34 Euro to get access to the electronic article. Cheapest subscription rate is 35 Euro, for members of International Society for Biosemiotic Studies). The article is a slightly altered version of a book chapter from Abram's new book Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology, which is currently the bestselling book at Amazon within 'phenomenology' and 'epistemology'.

Abstract:

Modern humans spend much of their time deploying a very rarefied form of intelligence, manipulating abstract symbols while their muscled body is mostly inert. Other animals, in a constant and largely unmediated relation with their earthly surroundings, think with the whole of their bodies. This kind of distributed sentience, this intelligence in the limbs, is especially keen in the case of birds of flight. Unlike most creatures of the ground, who must traverse an opaque surface of only two-plus dimensions as we make our way through the world, a soaring bird continually adjusts minute muscles in its wings to navigate an omnidimensional plenum of currents and interference patterns that alter from moment to moment. Flight itself may usefully be considered as a kind of thinking—as a sort of gliding within the mind. Moreover, since birds are commonly the most mobile inhabitants of any woodland, able to fly over and scan numerous events occurring on the ground, their varied utterances provide a crucial source of information for many other animals. This paper, written as a philosophic essay, explores avian cognition from a phenomenological standpoint. It then reflects upon the vocalizations of birds—noting the major role that such avian calls, cries, and songs have played in the development of human culture.

Keywords

Phenomenology — Cognition — Birds — Flight — Avian language — Interspecies communication — Animal intelligence

Abram's article is part of the special issue 'Semiotics of Perception', which I am guest-editing along with Kati Lindström. The print edition is due for publication in December, as Biosemiotics 3(3). All papers in the special issue are somehow connected to the Feb. 2009 Phenomenology meets Semiotics (where Culture meets Nature) events in Tartu, Estonia.