17th Annual Gatherings in Biosemiotics
Lausanne, 6-10 June 2017
The Gatherings in Biosemiotics are annual meetings of world scholars studying the myriad of communication and sign processes in living systems, from cellular signaling and communication in physiological systems to organisms and interspecies communication, to the sign-processes that are embedded within and necessary for human cognition and culture
In June 2017, the Gatherings will be hosted by the University of Lausanne, Switzerland.
Call for Papers
The Scientific Advisory Committee of the 17th Gatherings in Biosemiotics invites scholars to submit abstracts of presentations centering on the sign-processes in living systems, in synchrony and diachrony.
We particularly welcome research in the field of the following areas:
· Biosemiotics and linguistics
· The implications and relations of biosemiotics to philosophy and humanities
· History and epistemology of biosemiotics
· Extended synthesis
· Semiotic approaches in theoretical biology
· Ontogeny of semiotic mechanisms
· Habits, codes and mechanisms of learning
· Typology of semiosis and semiotic networks
· Modelling of semiosis
· Methodology of biosemiotic research
· Umwelt research
· Biophenomenology
· Cognitive semiotics of non-humans
· Evolution of semiosis
· Semiotic fundamentals of epigenetics and systems biology
· Semiotic thresholds
· Biosemiotics of health and disease
· Endosemiotics
· Zoosemiotics and ethology
· Experimental biosemiotics
Abstracts should be 300-600 words, in a standard word processing format (Times New Roman 12 point font, and A4 page size).
Abstracts should be submitted as single page files to the following address: biosemiotics2017@gmail.com and received no later than February 15, 2017. Please name the abstract file with the author’s (your) surname in capital letters, for instance SEBEOK.doc.
Notification of acceptance: March 15, 2017
What is Biosemiotics?
Biosemiotics is an interdisciplinary research agenda investigating the myriad forms of communication and signification found in and between living systems. It is thus the study of representation, meaning, sense, and the biological significance of codes and sign processes, from genetic code sequences to intercellular signaling processes to animal display behavior to human semiotic artifacts such as language and abstract symbolic thought.
Such sign processes appear ubiquitously in the literature on biological systems. Up until very recently, however, it had been implicitly assumed that the use of such terms as “message” “signal” “code” and “sign” was ultimately metaphoric, and that such terms could someday effectively be reduced to the mere chemical and physical interactions underlying such processes. As the prospects for such a reduction become increasingly untenable, even in theory, the interdisciplinary research project of biosemiotics is attempting to re-open the dialogue across the life sciences – as well as between the life sciences and the humanities – regarding what, precisely, such ineliminable terms as “meaning” and “significance” might refer to in the context of living, complex adaptive systems.
The purpose of the International Society for Biosemiotic Studies (ISBS) is to constitute an organizational framework for the collaboration among scholars dedicated to biosemiotic studies, and to propagate knowledge of this field of study to researchers in related areas, as well as to the public in general. Towards this end, the Society will assure the organization of regular meetings on research into the semiotics of nature, as well as to promote the publication of scholarly work on the semiotics of life processes.
Most fundamentally, the Society considers that one of its most important purposes is the promotion of a cross-disciplinary exchange of ideas between researchers who are actively studying any of the myriad forms of organismic sign use found throughout the natural and cultural world. ISBS thus welcomes the membership and collaboration of scholars from all relevant disciplines, including biology, philosophy, ethology, cognitive science, anthropology, and semiotics.
For more information: http://wp.unil.ch/biosemiotics2017/call-for-papers/
