20 years of Gatherings

When trying to make meaning a central feature in the study of Biology, the exchange of ideas within the Biosemiotic community has been instrumental. As we move forward in the world of a naturalized semiotics, we can look back to the ground we have already covered and be reminded that the Gatherings have a special place in how Biosemiotics is done. Every year, colleagues from all over the world meet to discuss concepts, make theoretical additions, iron out details and flesh out potential paradigms in different places of the world, places of relevance to Semiotics as a whole and places that have become new signposts for our discipline.

The project of Biosemiotics depends on the multiple instantiations we create of theories that take meaning seriously as a biological phenomenon, but it also depends on how we as researchers interact with each other–our agreements and disagreements–, making the Gatherings fertile soil to build upon academic trust and create semiotic rapport with our peers.

We hope for our 20th  Gatherings to be both a commemoration of what Biosemiotics has achieved and an open look towards the future of our discipline!