What will tomorrow be like?

After the futuristic impetus of the 20th century and the divination of the turn of the 21st century, we are now faced, at the same time, with unpredictability, uncertainty, indeterminacy and few guarantees - perhaps only that if there can be a future, it will have to be rethought and rebuilt by everyone starting today. This is how, as a science in the field of humanities, semiotics opens itself up to transtemporal questions and turns to the future, investigating its meanings, anticipating its flavors in order to pre-understand its dilemmas - it is the semiotics of the future.

This is also how, as a science of language, faced with a changing landscape of emerging communicational, technological, relational, institutional, political, human and ecosystemic possibilities, semiotics must reflect on itself, recognizing its possibilities and its limits, identifying its strengths and weaknesses, defending and valuing its place in becoming - this is the future of semiotics.

The upcoming edition of the Congress of the Latin American Federation of Semiotics (FELS), scheduled to take place from July 2 to 5, 2024, at the School of Communications and Arts (ECA-USP) in São Paulo, Brazil, in collaboration with Brazilian universities and entities dedicated to semiotic research and education, extends an invitation to our fellow researchers with Latin American blood, language, and soul, engaged in constant transcontinental and transatlantic experiences. It encourages them to contemplate the future of the planet and humanity in an integrated manner, starting from the privileged perspective of semiotics. The invitation also emphasizes the importance of not overlooking the self-questioning and self-reflection that are so necessary and urgent in all fields of knowledge in current times—and particularly promising when it comes to semiotics.