Dénia closes the first edition of its Humanitats Festival with great success

Monday, 31 de October 2022

The great wise men of the 21st century have gathered to analyze the challenges that human beings face today.

• Joan Subirats: “This festival honors the idea of culture as an essential right of people.”
• Antón Costas: “Capitalism's days are numbered.”
• Rafael Yuste: “It is urgent to protect brain activity with new human rights, so that it cannot be manipulated or decoded without permission.”
• Ben Wilson: “We want cities that grow taking into account the spirit of the people as part of that urbanism.”

Science, ecology, economy, globalization, urban planning, politics, health, patriarchy, immigration, history and many other things have been reflected on, from October 27 to 29, in the Alicante city of Dénia, during the first edition of the Dénia Festival of Les Humanitats. A unique multidisciplinary event, which has brought together great world experts to reflect on the great challenges that human beings face and the need to find the answers to these uncertainties in humanism.

The opening ceremony of this festival was attended by the Minister of Universities of the Government of Spain, Joan Subirats, the president of the Generalitat Valenciana, Ximo Puig, and the mayor of Dénia, Vicent Grimalt, representing the unequivocal institutional support for this important event. Subirats noted that "this festival honors the idea of culture as an essential right of people and is especially significant due to its size and its open nature to all." Along these same lines, Ximo Puig stated that "we are in Dénia to embrace ideas, which are what will help us combat the ghost of uncertainty that runs through Europe."

The future of the human being, under debate among world experts

Dénia Festival de les Humanitats offered a complete program of debates with top-level experts and references in different areas of knowledge, to try to respond to the central theme of this first edition of the Festival: “Mutations: what awaits us in the near future ?”

The business world had its voice in the Lluís Vives Space, where the current meaning of the company and its social function were analyzed. The vice president of the “la Caixa” Foundation, Juan José López-Burniol, reflected on the concept of “reglobalizing the world on new sustainable ecopolitical bases based on the general interest.” While the president of the Economic and Social Council, Antón Costas, showed his conviction that "capitalism's days are numbered, due to its inability to distribute wealth equally", therefore, he is committed to "civilizing capitalism again, or moralize it from a philosophical point of view.”

The writer and academic director of the Festival, Josep Ramoneda, and the world-famous writer and philosopher of Greek origin Theodor Kallifatides debated the immensity of the human soul, who offered phrases to make us all reflect such as, "War is the source of all tears, and democracy always loses.”

Top international scientists, such as the neurobiologist Rafael Yuste and the Computational Neuroscience researcher, Gustavo Deco, raised the unprecedented development of biotechnology and the great ethical, political and social challenges associated with it. As Rafael Yuste categorically stated, “it is urgent to protect brain activity, through new human rights, so that it cannot be manipulated or decoded without permission. Our duty as scientists is to warn society that this can happen."

The scientific cast continued with the participation of three experts in development and neurology: Mara Dierssen, Ángela Nieto and Tomàs Marquès, who shared very interesting thoughts about the evolutionary meaning of diseases. While the American expert Keshia Pollack and the director of Global Analysis and Development at ISGlobal, Rafael Vilasanjuan, talked about the impact of the Covid pandemic, insisting on the importance of public administrations investing in prevention against future pandemics that are to arrive.

The British historian Ben Wilson, the geographer and urban planner Francesc Muñoz, and the professor of Human Geography, Joan Romero, debated the challenges that cities must face today, having become great political and social actors, but at the same time vulnerable and segregators. Wilson stated that “we want cities that grow taking into account the spirit of the people as part of that urbanism.”

Another of the most anticipated presentations was that of the well-known English writer Sophy Roberts, who used her work The Last Pianos of Siberia to talk about geopolitical power movements in a world in constant change (technological, economic, social).

The relationship between humans and other species was the subject of reflection by the researcher Marta Segarra and the professor of Moral Philosophy and member of the Animal Ethics Foundation, Óscar Horta. While the philosopher, sociologist and essayist César Rendueles; Environmental historian Troy Vetesse and architect Gemma Barricarte wondered about the strategies we must collectively develop to promote a just environmental transition in the face of the global ecological crisis.

The French anthropologist Michel Agier also expressed interesting reflections on the need for life in common in a global world with closed borders. An impulse, that of closing the borders, that “the pandemic has taught us that it is a mistake, because it is ineffective,” said the former Minister of Health and Equality Leire Pajín, current director of Global Development at ISGlobal and president of the Spanish Network for Sustainable Development.

References such as the writers Remedios Zafra and Najat El Hachmi, and the psychologist Alba Alfageme also spoke about social responsibility, who analyzed the way to end the patriarchal model through feminism, a concept that, according to Zafra, “many use as a disguise.” social, but that they do not fully understand.”

Dénia, cultural capital of the Mediterranean

With the aim of bringing the Festival closer to the citizens, various cultural activities were held in different locations in the city of Dénia: conferences, literary days, artistic exhibitions, music and dance shows, all of them open to the public.

This first edition of the Dénia Festival de les Humanitats has been a complete success, both in terms of the number of entries and the quality of the events held. The mayor of the host city of the Festival, Vicent Grimalt, expressed his satisfaction that "Dénia has been the forum in which this debate on the essence of humanism and the urgency for it to once again be very present in our societies has been developed." The mayor announced “the continuity of this event, which will go beyond the official programming of the festival days.”