The Biosemiotics of Waste

July/August 2023 Special Issue of Biosemiotics

Edited By Yogi Hale Hendlin and Tyler James Bennett

With the symbolic shadow of colonial efficiency looming large on the semiotic landscape of all life, pollution occupies and influences the agency of (nearly) all organisms on our planet. The Anthropocene has meant for all living beings (to varying degrees) contamination with detritus–the afterthoughts of civilization. With a pointed interest in the interdependence of different kinds of waste, Michael Marder’s Dump Philosophy has suggested that today, “the meaning of being is being dumped” (p. 88). Dumping, and the waste which is both driver and product of dumping, shows up in countless ways for biosemiotics. It can be a tsunami of manipulation in popular media; biosemiosis inhibited, when the songbirds are drowned out by urban noise; fragile ecosystem scoping with degraded landscapes and biodiversity loss; or it can drive adaptation in the face of anthropogenic climate change. Only through examining the state of waste infiltrating biosemiotics can we raise a response adequate to the magnitude of this dump.

More information here: https://philevents.org/event/show/104446