A new Barcelona Pensa

Love, future and historical memory, some of the themes in this yearʼs program

Llibreria Calders (book store) will hold, on Monday, 18th of November, at 5 p.m., the celebration of the ephemerid of the hundred years of the birth of Primo Levi, Rosa Luxemburgo and Teresa Pàmies. The activity will remember these three figures, relevant for their political, cultural and historical career, and will be carried out by experts who know their legacy well: Núria Sara Miras, Antonio Gómez and Lluïsa Julià.

The same day, at 9 p.m., the opening of Barcelona Pensa will take place in La Rubia Horiginal. It will offer a roundtable and debate called “La muerte de la diferencia ontológica” (Death of ontological difference), gathering the lecturer Xavier Bassas and the poet, essayist and translator Arnau Pons, in order to debate, from different perspectives, on the notion of ontological difference and on what this notion has determined, especially within the philosophical, political, hermeneutic and poetic thinking. Science fiction has a place in the festival too. Several experts will carry out, in Palau de la Virreina, on Tuesday, 19th of November, from 5 p.m. to 5 p.m., the activity “Imaginar mundos futuros para pensar el presente” (Imagining future worlds to think about the present”. Also, at 7 p.m, in the same place, Albert Tomàs and Gemma Bartolí will offer the activity “Su fruto más dulce al paladar” (The sweetest fruit for your palate), to offer a view on the cultural construction of romantic love.

On Wednesday, 20th of November, from 5 p.m. to 8.30 p.m., La Model will hold the activity “Repensamos los espacios del franquismo. Del Valle de los Caídos al Águila de Tortosa” (Re-thinking Francoist spaces. From Valle de los Caídos to the Tortosa Eagle), by researchers from the European Observatory on Memories (EUROM) of the UB Solidarity Foundation.

Book presentation and Philosophy café

As usual, Barcelona Pensa has a place for book presentations. On Thursday, 21st of November, at 5 p.m., the bookstore Altaïr will hold the presentation of Iris Murdoch, una ética de atención, with Margarita Mauri, author of the book and lecturer at the UB, and Laura Cortés, high school instructor and member of the seminar Aristóteles and the seminar Iris Murdoch. On the same day and time will be the presentation, in the bookstore Obaga, of the book Ensayos y errores: arte, ciencia y filosofía en los videojuegos, formed by fifteen articles. The talk, with its authors, will focus on the damage videogames have done in the classic split between reality and virtuality: what happens in games has consequences in the individual and collective life of participants, who see how their lives with the screen and the world are permeable and how hard it becomes to find validation protocols between a sphere and the other.

This edition includes some philosophy cafés, one of them carried out by the lecturer of Philosophy of the UB Gonçal Mayos, titled as “El desconcierto politico actual (de Trump a Bolsonaro)”. It will take place on Saturday, 23rd of November at 11 a.m. in La Central del Raval, and the speaker will shortly analyze the current political, social and philosophical situation, to open an agile and critical debate with the attendants. Turboglobalization, neoliberal cuts in welfare state and the series of mortgage, financial and debt crises have tighten, fragmented and made democratic societies unpredictable.

Central conferences

There are two central conferences within the wide program of Barcelona Pensa: the first one, titled “Existencias zurcidas: estrategias de supervivencia, estrategias de vida”, will take place on Wednesday, 20th of November, in the auditorium in Patio Manning, at 12 noon, and will be given by Riccardo Mazzeo, disciple of Zygmunt Bauman and expert on the education of youngsters in a liquid world. The second one will be given by Ana Carrasco-Conde, lecturer of Philosophy at the Complutense University of Madrid, and expert on “the dark side” of philosophy: evil, cruelty, injustice, the hideous and terror. The conference, titled “Decir, delimitar y cuantificar el daño”, will take place in the room Oriol Bohigas in Ateneu Barcelonès, on Thursday, 21st of November at 7 p.m., and will analyze the definitions of evil and why, once applied to reality, none of them work out.

Highly philosophical music and theatre

With experimentation and the will to find new ways to spread thinking, Barcelona Pensa proposes attending the general rehearsal and following colloquium of the theatre play Waiting for Godot (1949, Samuel Beckett), on Wednesday, 20th of November at 6 p.m. in Sala Beckett. In this activity, titled “Peparant Godot”, the director Ferran Utzet will share some ideas of the play and its scenic proposal, and once the rehearsal ends, the UB lecturers Laura Llevadot (Philosophy) and Virgina Trueba (Spanish Philology) will get to the bottom of this play, which symbolizes a contemporary world that does not know what to expect next.

On Friday, 22nd of November, at 10.30 p.m., La Rubia Horiginal will hold a concert to close the festival, with Fernando Alfaro, El Pèsol Feréstec and Tirana, an artist and two groups that did not avoid (they actually seek) the kind of perplexity that makes us create philosophy. Afterwards, anyone who brings their own instrument can present a philosophical text with a musical piece.

Children and youngsters think too

Since the very first edition of Barcelona Pensa, the festival has organized several activities aimed at youngsters and children. This time, on Thursday, 21st of November, at 9.30 a.m., several rooms of the Faculty of Philosophy of the UB will hold the 2nd Ludic Philosophy Session and the 3rd Interschool Philo Schools Meeting: “A philosophy journey in the garden” by IREF and Angélica Sátiro. This is a dialogue activity between children and philosophers on ethics and environmental aesthetics, with the presence of children from Philo Schools from IREF Group, which implemented the project “El Jardín de Juanita”, formed by 37 posters narrating this ethic-aesthetic experience in eight different countries.

Also, on Saturday, 23rd of November, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., the CCCB (room 1), will hold the activity “Hacer las paces con la paz”, which consists on the presentation of the puppet play Pauuuuuu, carried out by CoCreatio group. It is an adaptation from the philosophy tale ¿La paz se logra con palabras?, by Angélica Sátiro (Octaedro). After the play, there will be a philosophy debate with the audience. A performance will close the activity.

The festival does not forget about young kids, and willing to make room for a participating and interactive debate between high school students and philosophy, there will be the activity “Interview with a philosopher”. Ester Jordana, distinguished philosopher, will answer questions by students about anything. This will take place on Thursday, 21st of November at 12 noon, in the Aula Magna of the Faculty of Philosophy.

As usual, on Saturday, 23rd of November, from 11 a.m. to 1 noon, there will be “Patio Filosófico” in CCCB (room 2). The activity consists on a philosophic dialogue between the attendants, in which six former students of Félix de Castro will talk about piece from a philosophical perspective.