CFP – Biosemiotics special issue: multi-level semiosis

Biosemiotics – special issue
Call for papers

The journal Biosemiotics (Springer) is preparing a special issue on “Multi-level semiosis: integrative approaches to biology, cognition and culture” guest-edited by Luis Emilio Bruni and Franco Giorgi.

In the last two decades there has been an increasing interest in communication processes and sign-systems at all levels of complexity, from the molecular-genetic level to the epigenetic (whole-cell) level, up to more systemic levels which include various types of communication systems such as nervous, immunologic, endocrine, ethological and ecological systems, including human cognition and culture.

Many disciplines have declared and pursued an “integrative agenda” giving rise to sub-disciplines such as “systems biology”, “integrative biology”, “systems neuroscience” and “integrative neuroscience”.  Common to all the integrative efforts has been the increasing importance given to the context and to the “interfaces” across different levels of organization, searching for a healthy balance between reductionism and holism. Biosemiotics as a discipline has been very active in this direction. The integrative agenda thus depends on the consideration of the embeddedness of semiotic systems and processes across levels.

The special issue welcomes theoretical works and empirical findings that highlight the biosemiotic perspective or implications in the modeling of multi-level and multi-scalar complex systems, complex networks, systems’ architectures, hierarchical and heterarchical systems, emergence and embeddedness in biological, cognitive and cultural processes. It also welcomes contributions that from a biosemiotic perspective analyze the semiotic implications of emerging disciplines that by definition are linking different levels, such as psychoneuroimmunology, social signal transduction, systems biology, systems neuroscience, integrative neuroscience, and integrative biology.

This special issue will be the first or second issue of Biosemiotics in 2016.
Deadline for submissions:    September 15th, 2015
The length of submitted papers is limited to 7.000 words (excluding abstract and references).

Instructions for authors are available here:
http://www.springer.com/life+sciences/evolutionary+%26+developmental+biology/journal/12304 <http://www.springer.com/life+sciences/evolutionary+%26+developmental+biology/journal/12304>

Papers should be submitted directly to:
Luis Emilio Bruni: leb@create.aau.dk <mailto:leb@create.aau.dk>
Franco Giorgi: giorgif@biomed.unipi.it <mailto:giorgif@biomed.unipi.it>