Humanities' Activities

Pandemic

Ideas for the post-pandemic. The future that awaits us

Manuel Lucena Giraldo, researcher at the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) and Pablo Martín-Aceña, from the University of Alcalá de Henares, starred in this colloquium moderated by Fernando Rodríguez Lafuente, from the University Institute of Research Ortega y Gasset. This conversation used humanities, new and old, to try to “understand what is happening to us”, or to contribute to the understanding of scenarios that are already a definitive part of our lives. "I do not want to be pessimistic but this won't be the last health crisis we will have," warned Martín-Aceña, who is convinced that globalization is here to stay. Lucena Giraldo was in favor of rethinking the current model of cities. “History shows us that we have experienced this before. However, the global technological acceleration that we have been experiencing since the fall of the Berlin Wall has made us experience everything in a more immediate way. We can say that we are witnessing the first pandemic broadcasted live to the whole world”. 

Publishing, books, and culture. Before and after the pandemic

We are perhaps witnessing a reevaluation of the importance of reading and the significance of the book in our universe. Are we witnessing a paradigm shift? What is the present and the future of publishing? Who reads, what is read and what is published today? Is there a crisis in publishing? What role do new technologies play in this context? Are we in the hands of these new technologies? How does the electronic book affect the dissemination and projection of culture? To answer all these questions and many others asked by the moderator of the meeting, Fernando Rodríguez Lafuente, from the Ortega y Gasset University Research Institute, were Jon Juaristi, Professor of Spanish Literature at the University of Alcalá; Jesús Egido, journalist and editor, and Abelardo Linares, poet, bibliophile, and editor. 

The Digital Condition

Digital has manifested itself in these months of pandemic as the lifeline from which our work and affective life hung amid a reduction in our social dimension that was necessary to protect everyone's health, but that has increased the vulnerability of those feeling loneliness and isolation. What does it mean that the only possible future is digital? And, above all, what does it mean for the human being that our future is digital? Manuel Lucena Giraldo, researcher at the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC); and Juan Luis Suárez, Professor at the University of Western Ontario, starred in this online colloquium, moderated by Fernando Rodríguez Lafuente, on the occasion of the presentation of issue 472 of the Occidente Magazine published by the José Ortega y Gasset Foundation - Gregorio Marañón - FOM. 

Pandemics and the economy throughout history

In the past, there have been three major pandemics that have affected all continents. In this colloquium two of them were addressed: the Black Death and the Flu of 1918, unfairly called the "Spanish Flu". Likewise, the conversations addressed the lessons that can be drawn from the study of the history of pandemics for the present time and, especially, for the relentless fight against COVID-19. Participated Beatriz Echeverri, from the Complutense University of Madrid; Mª Isabel Porras, from the University of Castilla-La Mancha; and Pablo Martín-Aceña, from the University of Alcalá.