From a semiotic perspective, the ecological crisis can be seen as a process and result of the deprivation of meanings in nature-cultures. In other words, today, we are losing the diversity and depth of meanings in ecosystems, cultures, and the relationships between them at an unprecedented speed. In this context, the lecture introduces ecosemiotics, a branch of semiotics that studies the meaning-making in ecosystems in their relations with human culture.
This public lecture will cover the history of ecosemiotics, its main concepts (umwelt, ecofield, semiotic ground, semiocide, ecological codes, and the ecosemiosphere), and its applications in research and cultural practice. Different usages will be illustrated by the experience gained in Tartu with applying ecosemiotics, including ecosemiotic place analysis, creative representations of endangered species, umwelt cards, etc. Ecosemiotics can help us understand how significance in life is created, maintained and lost: this appears to be necessary knowledge for moving towards a sustainable culture.
The lecture will be followed by comments from two discussants, Annelie Ott and Anna-Katharina Laboissiere, who will respond to the challenge of ecosemiotics from the vantage point of their own research.
The event is part of a collaboration about ecosemiotics, organized by the COSER research group and OCEH. Early career researchers can apply to join the PhD intensive, which includes the lecture and a field excursion the next day.
The event is also free and open to the public, but please register in advance here. Both the lecture and discussant responses will be streamed. If you're joining us online, please sign up via the advance registration link to receive also your Zoom registration link.
Timo Maran is an Estonian semiotician, poet and Professor of Ecosemiotics and Environmental Humanities at the Department of Semiotics of the University of Tartu, Estonia. His research interests include the theory and application of ecosemiotics, ecocriticism and Estonian nature writing, the semiotics of nature-cultures, and biological mimicry. His publications include the monograph Mimicry and Meaning: Structure and Semiotics of Biological Mimicry (Springer, 2017) and Ecosemiotics. The Study of Signs in Changing Ecologies (Cambridge University Press, 2020). As a poet, Maran has published six volumes of poetry.