I’m coordinator of Semiofest’s series of informal online “sessions” — which I helped get started last year. Coming up on April 21…

BIOSEMIOTICS — WHAT’S NEXT?

Biosemiotics is a field of semiotics (or vice versa, it could be argued) that analyzes the production of signs and codes in the biological realm. Proceeding from the premise that semiosis is intrinsic to all living nature, biosemiotics practitioners have developed a holistic and integrated understanding that radically challenges — and can also reboot and revitalize — the way that we applied semioticans think about and practice our craft. This session’s participants are deeply immersed in, and imaginatively engaged with this still-emerging field.

Our sessionists are:

• PAUL COBLEY is Professor in Language and Media at Middlesex University. His research interests include semiotics, close reading, narrative, and popular fiction. His books include Cultural Implications of Biosemiotics, Narrative, and The American Thriller: Generic Innovation and Social Change in the 1970s.

• NATASHA DELLISTON is a semiotician and brand consultant with 30 years of experience. She uses wide-ranging cultural analysis to help individuals, brands, and purpose-led organizations to land their big ideas. Her interest in biosemiotics has been driven by its application to environmental, animal, and disability charities.

• MALCOLM EVANS played a key role in pioneering and disseminating commercial semiotics. Today, he focuses on his own writing and research while continuing to work on advanced semiotics and cultural insight training. He remains involved with client projects in line with his social, environmental and biosemiotic interests.

• YOGI HENDLIN is an environmental philosopher and public health scientist with academic appointments in the Netherlands and San Francisco. In 2019 Yogi won the Biosemiotics Achievement Award for most original contribution, and is currently Editor-in-Chief of the journal Biosemiotics.

BIOEMIOTICS session host: Lucia Laurent-Neva

Semiofest Sessions coordinator: Josh Glenn