CHARLAS INSPIRADORAS

Science and literature have converged on many occasions.  In a story line, the two come together to make up pasts, to imagine presents, and portray futures of scientific speculation.  In an historic line, the alliance between science and literary fiction, which is not at all new,  offers us a chance to take a provocative look at scientific activity and society in periods in the past, through an author's literary prism.  The series Charlas inspiradoras [Inspirational Discussions], comprised of three sessions over several weeks, has been arranged by CSIC and Casa del Lector.  Its purpose is to explore those times in which science and literature, key to human creativity, have converged.  
  Thursday, February 14, 2013. 7:00pm. Rooms 4-9

Santiago Ramón y Cajal: Scientist, Artist and Humanist María Pedraza Botí. Scientist, Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Neurobiology Department. Insituto Cajal, CSIC.   There is no city or small town in Spain, no matter how small it may be, that doesn't have a square or street bearing the name of Santiago Ramón y Cajal.  There is no one more popular and- at the same time- so unknown.  Ramón y Cajal, a lover of the salon discussions of his age, where he would “air out the subterranean galleries of the spirit” (in the words of Marañón), discoverd in them the uncertainty of publishing literary works which were, at the time, truly bestsellers: ‘Mi infancia y juventud’ [My Childhood and Adolescence] (1901), ‘Cuentos de vacaciones’ [Vacation Stories] (1905), ‘Psicología de Don Quijote y el quijotismo’ [The Psychology of Don Quixote and Quixotism] (1905), ‘Chacharas de café’ [Coffee Chatter]; ‘El mundo visto a los ochenta años’ [The World As Seen From An Eighty Year Old]… even the speech he made upon his induction to the Real Academia de Ciencias [the Royal Academy of Sciences] (1897) was so successful that many editions were made.  In this discussion we'll get a look up close of the humanistic workings of Cajal: his literature, painting, and photography.

  Thursday, February 21, 2013. 7:00pm. Rooms 4-9

Mathematics Or Emotion In Literature Ignacio Ferrando. Writer, engineer, and professor of Narrative Fiction at the Escuela de Escritores   How much prevarication is there in literature?  And how much analysis?  How much structure is there?  How much emotion is there?  How much distraction?  How much of it is empty?  Sistematically, mathematics and literature have taken diverging, disassociated,  close-off paths, each one very different from the other.  Our own educational system marks a clear division between the two beginning with basic education.  This conference sets out to build bridges between the two disciplines and demonstrate that, in some way, the two fields enrich one another.     Thursday, February 28, 2013. 7:00pm. Rooms 4-9

Novelizing Science: Literary Innovation And A Scientific Scope In The Fiction of the 19th Century Pura Fernández . Research professor and head of Research Group in Hispanic Culture, Publishing, and Literature at CCHS (CSIC).   Science and literature are usually go well together when it comes to imagining or looking for an alternative route to day-to-day (and predictable) ways of living.  But what happens when, going beyond science-fiction, novelists decide to build their storylines, their characters, and their own narrative techniques based on the latest scientific discoveries?  When authors such as Galdós, Clarín, Pardo Bazán, Blasco Ibáñez and Baroja discovered, in the innovations of science, the instrument for a new narrative art; the way to make a novel a tool for social change and education.  What happens, specifically, when the innovation of the Spanish novel is the result of reading the writings of a biologist such as Darwin, or a doctor like Bernard, or a neurologist such as Charcot?

Anyone attending the complete series of conferences will receive a certificate of attendance.