The Semiotic Society of America (SSA) met for its 42nd annual conference in Puebla, Mexico at the Universidad Popular Autonoma del Estado de Puebla (UPAEP) on October 25-29, 2017. The local host was Dora Ivonne Alvarez Tamayo of UPAEP, and the theme of the conference was the “The Play of Signs and the Signs of Play.” The decision to meet in Mexico was a timely choice by the members of the society in response to a gracious invitation from UPAEP, and a statement of solidarity against offensive political rhetoric expressed by some individuals in the US. The university was a perfect venue for our scholarly exchange of ideas, and the people of the surrounding communities provided a wonderful experience for the conference. There were over 120 research papers presented by participants from around the world in addition to plenary speakers and special panels.

Keynote speaker William Gomes, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil, addressed the theme of the conference with his presentation titled, “How Can ‘the Play of Signs and the Signs of Play’ Become an Attractive Model for Dealing with Eidetic and Empirical Research.” Roman Esqueda, Univeridad Autonoma Metropolitana Cuajimalpa in Mexico City, gave a plenary lecture, “Design Thinking as Play of Musement.” Deborah Smith-Shank of Ohio State University gave her Presidential Address, “Semiotics, Material Culture, and Arts-based Inquiry.”

A Plenary roundtable, “The Life and work of John Deely (1942-2017): A Compassionate Human Being and an Exceptional Scholar”, featured moving presentations by Farouk Seif, Brooke Williams Deely, Richard L. Lanigan, and Myrdene Anderson. Each of the presenters celebrated the life and work of John Deely, and reminded the society of John’s impact on semiotics and his enduring contributions to the Semiotic Society of America. The panel opened with a brief video presentation by Farouk Seif and Elliot Gaines that featured photos and an interview with John Deely. The interview had been conducted in 2001 by Gaines at the 26th Annual Conference of the SSA in Toronto. In the interview, Deely spoke with characteristic eloquence of the importance of semiotics and the philosophical debate about ens reale and ens rationis that still resonates today. This video is posted on the Media Literacy and Semiotics Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/​ElliotI.Gaines/​

At the General Meeting of the Society on Sunday, October 29th, the head of the Program Committee, Deborah Eicher-Catt was installed as the new President and Farouk Seif became the new Vice-President of the Society for 2018. Executive Director Javier Clavere reported current issues and plans for the 2018 conference that he will host at Berea College in Kentucky.

The editors of the Semiotic Society of America publications are changing. The new editor of The American Journal of Semiotics (TAJS) will be Jamin Pelky of Ryerson University in Toronto, and the new editor of the Yearbook of the Semiotic Society of America will be Geoffrey Owens of Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. The American Journal of Semiotics provides a good look at some of the special interests of the Society. A special issue on Ernst Cassirer will be published soon with Richard Lanigan, executive director of the International Communicology Institute as guest editor. Two additional special issues scheduled for 2018 are the Deely Memorial issue and a special issue entitled Applied Brand Semiotics. The latter will feature select papers from Semiofest 2017, hosted for the first time in North America in Toronto, and featured both Paul Bouissac and Marcel Danesi as plenary speakers. In addition, two SSA members are editors of Semiotica: Journal of the International Association for Semiotic Studies / Revue de l'Association Internationale de Sémiotique. Stéphanie Walsh Matthews is Associate Editor of French, and former SSA President, Marcel Danesi is Editor-in-Chief.

The Third Conference of the International Association for Cognitive Semiotics (IACS) will meet in Toronto, Canada, July 12-15, 2018. This will be the first time the IACS conference takes place in North America. For more information, see the following link: http://iacs-2018.org/​iacs3/​

Please see the Semiotic Society of America website for further information, news and updates, publications, semiotic resources, and announcements about the upcoming events, publications, and the 2018 conference in Berea, Kentucky, USA: https://semioticsocietyofamerica.org/​