Candidate for the position of  Vice-President China (first mandate as bureau member)

Hongbing Yu

Associate Professor, Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada

Distinguished Research Fellow, Nanjing Normal University, China

Curriculum Vitae

I am currently serving as President of Semiotic Society of America and Secretary General of Asian Semiotics International Association, in addition to key leadership roles at two major semiotic centers in China, to wit, Executive Director of “International Institute for Semiotic Studies” at Nanjing Normal University, and Director of “International Institute for Language and Cultural Semiotics” at Dalian University of Foreign Languages. These international leadership positions have afforded me the unique opportunity to straddle and bridge Asian (particularly China) and North American communities of semiotics as I divide my time between Canada and China. It is also based in these two cultural milieux that I have been able to bring together semiotic minds in the world, encouraging intellectual dialogue and organizational cooperation, and promoting solidarity, equity, diversity, and inclusion in global semiotics.

With a Ph.D. (summa cum laude) in Applied Linguistics and Cultural Semiotics, I have published extensively in semiotics and many related fields, with two solo-authored monographs on the semiotic mechanisms of language, culture, and mind, and over sixty articles in crucial venues of global semiotics, such as Semiotica, The American Journal of Semiotics, Biosemiotics, Chinese Semiotic Studies, and so on. I am currently focusing on cultural semiotics of Jingshen, of which I am a co-progenitor (together with Zhang Jie), as well as Chinese and Asian semiotic traditions, in addition to my years-long commitment to the studies of theories from Peirce, Saussure, among other representative figures of contemporary sign inquiry.

Manifesto

I am running for Vice-president China in the Bureau of the IASS-AIS.

I have a very good knowledge of the history of the IASS-AIS and its Congresses. Not only have I attended all past Congresses since 2012, but I have also served the IASS-AIS with distinction by organizing many international semiotic events in China under its auspices since 2008. Crucially, in the past ten years, as requested by Vice-president China and approved by the Bureau, I have been assisting VP China and taking part in all Bureau meetings.

Thanks to the first-hand experience of working closely with the Bureau, I have been able to help develop and maintain strong ties between semiotic organizations inside and outside China through the IASS-AIS, and most importantly, to fight fruitfully alongside brilliant colleagues from Americas, Asia, Oceania, Africa, and Europe for an inclusive and supportive global community that could benefit all our fellow semioticians, especially young researchers.

If elected to the position, I will continue to strengthen academic connections between semioticians inside and outside China through the IASS-AIS. My commitments include the following, in addition to whatever possible constructive and inclusive measures of the new Bureau for the next five years:

1)     Organizing and supporting international conferences, workshops, summer schools, and seminars in China under the auspices of the IASS-AIS;

2)     Promoting international partnerships between Chinese semiotic centers and global semiotic organizations through the IASS-AIS;

3)     Expanding membership and attracting funding for the IASS-AIS in China;

4)     Support and increase opportunities for participation in collective research, benefiting especially the careers of young researchers globally;

5)     Creating, strengthening, and supporting educational programs (PhD, MA & BA) in semiotics in China, and promoting opportunities for education, exchange, and post-doc positions for young researchers;

6)     Supporting and promoting semioticians’ works globally through prestigious publication venues such as Chinese Semiotic Studies, book series, and translation projects;

7)     Integrating resources for information and communication technologies in Chinese semiotics centers to increase the global visibility of all relevant semiotics initiatives in the country and beyond.