CALL FOR APPLICATIONS FOR ACADEMIC PARTICIPATION SPACES

The Organizing Committee and the Scientific Committee of the 17th World Congress of the International Association for Semiotic Studies (IASS-AIS) invite researchers and academic groups from around the world to participate in this call by submitting proposals for the various academic participation spaces of the Congress.

Conceived as spaces for dialogue, exchange, and collaboration, these spaces promote the discussion of research, theoretical developments, methodologies, and creative experiences that contribute to the strengthening of semiotic studies and their multiple disciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary interfaces.

Objectives of the Academic Participation Spaces

  1. To promote dialogue among different traditions within semiotics.
  2. To strengthen international research networks.
  3. To foster interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches.
  4. To foster encounters between theoretical research, artistic practice, design, the sciences, and the humanities, and to open spaces for emerging perspectives.

Proposal Requirements

Each proposal must be submitted in English using the official conference form and must include:

  1. Title.
  2. Academic participation space.
  3. Name(s) of the coordinator(s).
  4. Institutional affiliation.
  5. Email address.
  6. Abstract (maximum 250 words).
  7. Five keywords.

Responsibilities of the Coordinators

  1. To promote the call for papers within their academic networks.
  2. To evaluate the submitted paper proposals.
  3. To organize the sessions of the academic participation spaces.
  4. To maintain communication with the Scientific Committee.
  5. To ensure the academic quality of the academic participation space.

Conditions

  1. Each participant may coordinate or co-coordinate up to two academic participation spaces.
  2. All coordinators must register for the conference.
  3. All coordinators must be active members of the IASS-AIS at the time of registration.
  4. In keeping with the multilingual tradition of the International Association for Semiotic Studies (IASS-AIS), academic participation spaces may be conducted in English, Spanish, French, and German. Additionally, the Conference will include Italian and Portuguese as guest languages.

Evaluation Criteria

Proposals will be evaluated by the Scientific Committee based on the following:

  1. Relevance to the general theme of the Congress.
  2. Originality.
  3. Academic quality.
  4. International relevance.
  5. Potential to bring together a broad community of researchers.
  6. Geographic and institutional balance.
  7. Any proposal that has used AI for the total or partial creation of its content must include a brief description in the registration form indicating which tools were used and at what stage of the process.
  8. The Scientific Committee may, exceptionally and by collective decision, consider proposals whose academic relevance or importance to a convening scientific community warrants special consideration, even if they do not fully meet one or more of the requirements established in the call.

After Acceptance

Once the academic participation spaces have been approved:

  1. They will be published on the official website.
  2. The call for individual presentations will open.
  3. Authors will submit their abstracts directly to the coordinator of the academic participation space via the official platform, following the established procedure.

Important Dates

  1. Call for Applications for Academic Participation Spaces opens: July 31, 2026.
  2. Deadline for submissions for academic participation spaces: October 31, 2026.
  3. Notification of results: November 1–15, 2026.
  4. Call for individual papers opens: November 16, 2026.
  5. Deadline for paper submissions: January 31, 2027.
  6. Notification of results: March 1–15, 2027.
  7. Publication of the preliminary program: April 1, 2027.
  8. 17th World Congress of Semiotics 2027: July 26–30, 2027.

Academic Participation Spaces

The 17th World Congress of the International Association for Semiotic Studies (IASS-AIS), Cali, Colombia 2027, recognizes that the production of knowledge in semiotic studies today takes place through multiple forms of research, creation, and dialogue. Consequently, this call for papers includes various academic participation spaces, designed to promote exchange among researchers, artists, designers, educators, students, communities, and international networks, thereby strengthening a space for encounter that is open to the diversity of perspectives, methodologies, and practices that enrich the field of semiotics. The Conference recognizes the importance of encouraging the participation of new generations of researchers, fostering dialogue between established academic careers and emerging perspectives that enrich the field of semiotics through a diversity of contexts, approaches, and experiences.

1. Symposia and Research Panels

Forums dedicated to the presentation, exchange, and discussion of research that contributes to the development of semiotic studies from diverse theoretical, methodological, and disciplinary perspectives. Through symposia and panels, we foster critical dialogue, the exchange of experiences, and the collective exploration of new horizons for semiotic studies.

2. Research-creation

Research-creation are participatory spaces for sharing projects and processes that integrate research and creation as part of a single process of inquiry and knowledge production. Proposals may take the form of artworks, designs, architectural proposals, audiovisual productions, performances, installations, prototypes, interventions, and other forms of creation. Creative practice constitutes a path of inquiry that allows us to explore questions, develop processes, produce experiences, and generate forms of knowledge. Participation fosters dialogue and reflection on the processes, methodologies, experiences, and results that emerge from this integration.

3. Encounter labs

The encounter labs are participatory spaces for collective experimentation in which participants are invited to explore, create, experiment, and construct meaning together. They are developed using methodologies that prioritize experience, interaction, and participation, and may incorporate practices drawn from the performing arts, performance art, theater, dance, movement, bodywork, workshops, and other forms of sensory exploration. The shared experience and its subsequent systematization and reflection foster processes in which, through practice, forms of epistemic construction and semiotic knowledge emerge, which can give rise to theoretical elaborations and diverse forms of knowledge circulation.

Thematic Areas

The thematic areas of the Congress are conceived as spaces for conversation centered on major contemporary challenges. From this perspective, researchers from different traditions, approaches, and cultural contexts will be able to come together to reflect jointly on issues such as sustainability, creation, education, technologies, corporealities, care, and territories. In this way, the Congress seeks to strengthen a more integrated semiotic community, capable of articulating diverse ways of knowing and of developing, from Latin America, new research agendas with international reach.

To facilitate the formulation of proposals for academic participation spaces and to foster convergence among diverse research perspectives, the following thematic areas are presented as an open framework for organizing panels and other academic participation spaces:

  1. Semiotics of Sustainability: Biodiversity as a subject of meaning; ecosemiotics; regenerative urbanism; biopolitics of territory; relationships between nature, culture, art, and research.
  2. Semiotics of Creation and Cosmogonies: Processes of creation as practices of signification; research-creation; Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and Western cosmogonies; imagination, myth, and narratives of origin.
  3. Semiotics of Symbolic Resistance: Territorial and decolonial narratives; peasant, Afro-descendant, and Indigenous ways of knowing; memory, justice, conflict, reconciliation, and peacebuilding; practices of reexistence and interculturality.
  4. Semiotics of Education and the Transmission of Ways of Knowing: Learning and training processes; intergenerational transmission of knowledge; territorial pedagogies; poetics of contact, play, and childhood; intercultural education and community practices.
  5. Semiotics of Mobility, Travel, and Territories: Travel, exploration, and journeys as experiences of meaning; tourism and heritage; hospitality; contemporary practices of cultural consumption; cartography, displacement, and narratives of dwelling.
  6. Discursive, Media, and Communication Semiotics: Discourse analysis; multimodality; political and public communication; audiovisual narratives; rhetorics of territories in print, digital, and transmedia platforms.
  7. Semiotics of Digital and Algorithmic Environments: Artificial intelligence; digital platforms; video games; animation; digital art; human-machine interaction; algorithmic cultures and media ecologies.
  8. Semiotics of Corporealities and Sensibilities: Human and more-than-human bodies as territories of meaning; performance; dance; fashion; sensory studies; affects; gender, ethnicity, disability, and intersectionality.
  9. Semiotics of Crafts, Materialities, and Cultural Economies: Craft as a symbolic practice; material culture; design; heritage; relationships between art, craft, the creative economy, innovation, and academia.
  10. Semiotics of Care and Ways of Life: Practices of care among humans and more-than-humans; relational ecologies; biodiversity and biocultural heritage; food sovereignty; buen vivir; hospitality and shared futures.

PROPOSAL FORMS

Select the form language and submit your academic participation proposal.

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