Cognitive Semiotics

While we are waiting for #4 to leave press (it should be anytime now), we should announce that members of the editorial board will be presenting papers at the upcoming 34th Annual Meeting of the Semiotic Society of America, taking place in Cincinnati, Ohio, Oct. 15-18.

http://uwf.edu/tprewitt/ssa.htm

The editors of Cognitive Semiotics are scheduled for two sessions, both under the heading “Semiotics and Cognitive Studies”.

Session 1 is Friday 16 October: 14:00 -15:30

Session 2 is Saturday 17 October: 10:15 – 12:15

The full program can be viewed here:

http://www.uwf.edu/tprewitt/2009SSAprogram.htm

We hope to see some of you there!

Cognitive Semiotics #3 (Fall 2008) is now available from our publisher, Peter Lang, and in its electronic form at Metapress. It has been aptly titled “Semiotics as a Cognitive Science” and contains seven diverse and wide-ranging contributions by Elmar Holenstein, Marcel Hénaff, Jesper Sørensen, Robert E. Haskell, Claudio Paolucci, Svend Østergaard and Peter Vuust & Andreas Roepstorff. Please click on the links below to access the table of contents as well as the editorial preface and article abstracts for the issue. Enjoy!

Cognitive Semiotics #3 (Fall 2008). ISSN 1662-1425

166 pages. Paperback. Art. No. 81606.

Click here for: Table of Contents (pdf)

Click here for: Editorial Preface & article abstracts (pdf)

Finally, click here to: order online at peterlang.com (for print or electronic version. However, if you’re ONLY interested in the electronic version, here’s a direct link to the Metapress hosting site for that:
http://peterlang.metapress.com/content/120905).

Cognitive Semiotics #7 (Fall 2010): Ritual Violence.

EDITORS: Tim Adamson & Armin W. Geertz
DEADLINE: October 1st 2009.
- click here to download the full call for submissions with all details in PDF-format.

As subscribers to the print edition of Cognitive Semiotics will know the second issue of our journal has been out for a couple of weeks already, but we had to wait for the publication of the electronic version to be able to announce it officially. Well, the wait is over and we’re happy to present Cognitive Semiotics #2 (Spring 2008): Cognitive Poetics! The links below provide access to the ordering page at our publisher’s website, as well as free-to-download pdf-versions of the table of contents and all article abstracts for the issue. Enjoy; and spread the word!

Cognitive Semiotics #2 (Spring 2008). ISSN 1662-1425

196 pages. Paperback. Art. No. 81605.

Click here for: Table of Contents (pdf)

Click here for: Editorial Preface & article abstracts (pdf)

Finally, click here to: order online at peterlang.com (for print or electronic version. However, if you’re ONLY interested in the electronic version, here’s a direct link to the Metapress hosting site for that:
http://peterlang.metapress.com/content/120905).

The editorial board and Peter Lang International Academic Publishers are proud to present the first official issue of COGNITIVE SEMIOTICS – Multidisciplinary Journal on Meaning and Mind. We hope you will welcome this new addition to the academic field and help us spread the word to all interested parties. Furthermore, we find this issue to be a real showcase of what Cognitive Semiotics is about and what we aim for with the journal, so please allow yourself a moment to study the table of contents and article abstracts referenced below. We wish you happy reading and hope you will find the journal both exciting and interesting!

Cognitive Semiotics #1, Fall 2007. ISSN 1662-1425

148 pages. Paperback. Art. No. 81602.

Click here for: Table of Contents (pdf)

Click here for: Editorial Preface & article abstracts (pdf)

Finally, click here to: order online at peterlang.com (or click here to download printable order form instead). Alternatively, click on the corresponding links in the sidebar to the right.

- When ordering online, you have the choice to subscribe to either the print version or the electronic version of the journal.

A general introduction to the journal

We are pleased to present this very first issue of Cognitive Semiotics. The journal will publish two print issues a year, one in the spring and one in the fall. Additionally, in December each year (starting 2010) a special issue of the Companion to Cognitive Semiotics, our free online complement to the printed journal, will be published on this website which also serves as a vital resource for the journal.

Issue #0 (Spring 2007) – click here for a full version of the cover

As a whole Cognitive Semiotics offers its readers the opportunity to engage with ideas from the European and American traditions of cognitive science and semiotics, and to follow developments in the study of meaning -  both in a cognitive and in a semiotic sense – as they unfold internationally. The intention of the journal is to create and facilitate dialogue, debate, and collaboration among those interested both in human cognition and in human semiotic experiences and behavior.

This intention is inherited from its Danish antecedent, the journal Almen Semiotik, published by the Aarhus University Press (1990-2002). The initiative to create a transatlantically based journal comes from the Center for Cognition and Culture, at the department of Cognitive Science at Case Western Reserve University, and from a group of researchers trained at the Center for Semiotics, in Denmark, and based in Aarhus and Copenhagen. These joint editors identify the present issue as issue number “0″ to signify its transitional status. We are happy that Cognitive Semiotics will be published by Peter Lang Publishing Group, where the book series European Semiotics, created in 1999, is also housed.

Let us briefly explain the general content of this journal, the field of thinking and research we name cognitive semiotics.

Human minds ‘cognize’ and ’signify’ as complementary aspects of their capacity to think and feel. If we accept the metaphor of ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ levels of cognition, and the idea of seeing the ‘higher levels of cognition’ as those responsible for abstraction, language, discourse, institutions, law, science, music, visual arts, and cultural practices in general, grounded in the use of conventionally established and intentionally used signs (often called symbols), then semiotics is the discipline committed to the study of these ‘higher levels’. Relying predominantly on expressionbased communication, the contents of these higher-level cognitive feats can be shared by expressive exchanges of signified meanings (GE: Bedeutungen; FR: sens).

These meanings, in turn, can be made the subject of inquiry, their semiotic structure and significance indicators of how minds cognize together, and of the cognitive mechanisms which make their production and comprehension possible in the first place.

The mental activities of thinking and communicating are importantly interrelated in our species. Human societies and cultures, and civilization at large, are the results of cooperating and conflicting minds, connected through cognitive-semiotic functions and processes. To gain scientific knowledge about these often still unexplored phenomena, found increasingly important by the scientific community, the journal is devoted to high quality research, integrating methods and theories developed in the disciplines of cognitive science with methods and theories developed in semiotics and the humanities, with the ultimate aim of providing new insights into the realm of human meaning production and the modalities of its embodiment and disembodiment.

Cognitive Semiotics (and Companion to Cognitive Semiotics) will publish peer-reviewed manuscripts according to a doubleblind protocol. We invite authors to submit manuscripts on the above-mentioned and related topics to the editors at info@cognitivesemiotics.com. Also, we encourage everyone to visit our website frequently for relevant updates and news, and to sign up for our electronic newsletter to be informed of the upcoming editions of the journal (you do so by sending your name and email address to info@cognitivesemiotics.com).

- The editorial board

PS: A free, electronic version of issue #0 is available for download and personal distribution. Just click on the link in the sidebar.

Welcome to the news blog for Cognitive Semiotics – a new peer-reviewed journal for international science and the humanities. Here we will provide information about the journal, its themes and publication progress, as well as offer information on future subscription offers and call for papers, and the like – so remember to check back regularly!

The first issue, due for publication in April 2007, bears the theme “Agency” and contains articles by Shaun Gallagher, Merlin Donald, Rick Grush, Søren Overgaard & Thor Grünbaum, Kristian Tylén, and Mikkel Holm Sørensen & Tom Ziemke.

This inaugural issue will in turn celebrate the successful transition from being a locally based endeavour at Aarhus University, Denmark to becoming a true international journal with prominent editorial board members positioned on both sides of the Atlantic; in Denmark at the University of Aarhus and the University of Copenhagen, and in the United States at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. The latter will also serve as the official future home for the journal.

More info will follow as the journal and our international cooperation progresses. This is just a short welcome to let you know of our existence and, hopefully, to spark your interest in our journal!