Click Here to Read: Abstract of The Bio-semiotic Roots of Psychoanalytic Metapsychology by Anna Aragno.
Click Here To Read: The Bio-semiotic Roots of Psychoanalytic Metapsychology by Anna Aragno.
I have just returned from Prague where I had been invited to participate in the 9th Biosemiotics Conference held at the Charles University( established in the 1200’s) and the oldest university in Eastern Europe. This is a new field (only about a decade old!!) extremely inter-and trans-disciplinary with academics, research scientists, evolutionary biologists, bacteriologists, embriologists, semioticians, linguists etc etc…. from ( literally ) all over the world. Czech Republic,Russia, Italy( several) Finland, Spain, England, Denmark, Australia,France…. and the whole conference is in English. I was informed of this field and went to the Prague conference as a consequence of my ‘Empathy’ paper in JAPASept 2008 ): one of the academic discussants,Prof. Don Favareau invited both Bonnie Litowitz and myself. It was intesting: The two most prominent figures, Marcello Barbieri, embriologist( Ferrarra, Italy) and Don Favareau( Singapore University) an expatriote( ?) american, are the founders and I am becoming a sort of bridge between psychoanalysis and these scientific fileds represneting the person who studies the human mind, in its entirety—primarily the unconscious. Barbieri( the Editor of their journal )had asked me to write a paper introducing myself and my contributions to our field and loved the paper. It went over very well, and I made a very special connection with an elderly, inferm. professor Niebauer, their “Guru,” as Markos called him when introducing us, with whom I had very interesting discussions( in Italian) regarding some of the basic premises of this field of Biosemiotics, essentially the study of all forms of communication in nature. In preparation I had read the entire 600 or more page, Springer publication, edited by Marcello Barbieri “Introduction to Biosemiotics” a formidable book, gaining a broad overview of the span and range of interdisciplinary ideas that converge on the notion of the existence of ” semiosis” at multiple levels in the natural world.
As I wrote to Arnie its sort of fun being an emissary from psychoanalysis, expanding the dialogue into arenas where not much is known about the human mind! and it was wonderful to see one of the most spectacular cities of Europe– Prague is very well preserved and a truly magnificent city.