Part 1. Essential Catalan women authors
- February: L’edat dels vius (Univers, 2022), by Mar Bosch
- March: Estimades màquines (Males Herbes, 2020), by Carme Torras
- April: Diatomea (La Magrana, 2022), by Núria Perpinyà
Part 2. Two masters of the 19th century
- May: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (Proa, 2019), by Edgar Allan Poe
- June: The Sphinx of the Ice (El Cep i la Nansa, 2021), by Jules Verne
- Juny: L’esfinx del glaç (El Cep i la Nansa, 2021), de Jules Verne
Part 3. Fantastic horror
- September: Carrie (Males Herbes, 2026), by Stephen King
- October: Mammalia (Males Herbes, 2024), by Elisenda Solsona
- November: The Dunwich Horror (Laertes, 2022), by H.P. Lovecraft
Registration
Sessions are held via the Tellfy application, an instant communication platform that allows the creation of chats and discussion spaces specific to each club or thematic community.
To register for the club, access the registration link available on the Libraries of Catalonia website and request admission to the relevant community.
Access to the books
The selected books can be accessed in two ways:
- Through the digital lending service eBiblio / Biblio Digital.
- At public and university libraries, subject to availability.
How to take part
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Access Tellfy via a web browser or download the app to your device.
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Create a user account on the platform.
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Request admission to the club or community of your choice using the corresponding link.
Books will be available between the 1st and 4th of the month in which they are to be read. Each reader will have a 21-day loan period, adjusted to the reading month.For the February reading, licences will be activated on 2 February.
Important information
Please note that places may be limited depending on the club or community.Participation requires a Libraries of Catalonia library card, which is necessary to access digital lending resources such as the books available on Biblio Digital.
Throughout the duration of the club, at least two in-person activities are organised at the Humanities Library, such as talks, presentations, or meetings with authors. These activities, carried out in collaboration with academic staff and other organisations, complement the club experience and foster cultural exchange and direct engagement with the reading community.
First activity: “Dear Machines: Robotics and Catalan Science Fiction” Symposium
Date: 22 April, 12:00–14:30
Moderator: Lluc Casals Perpinyà
Registration: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/e/yBYAHEx0ck?origin=lprLink
1st talk: Carme Torras: Visions of the future that inspire reflection and action
The mutual inspiration between technoscience and fiction has never been more evident or necessary. The fantasy of creating artificial humans has led to the development of robotic assistants, which in turn raise ethical questions explored in works of fiction. When attempting to anticipate the potential benefits and risks of technologies such as AI and social robotics, researchers across disciplines, teachers in schools and universities, and even business leaders turn to science fiction. Speculative and anticipatory literature becomes a cultural resource for imagining future worlds, fostering ethical reflection, and experimenting with different ways of acting in order to make responsible choices towards a humanly desirable future. This convergence of technoscience and the humanities can be extremely productive and opens up promising perspectives for the coming years.
2nd talk: Víctor Martínez-Gil: Artificial consciousness in Catalan literature
The creation of artificial, conscious life is one of the earliest themes addressed by Catalan science fiction, which emerged between the Renaixença and Modernisme. It can be said to follow in the footsteps of the genre’s founder, Mary Shelley, and her Frankenstein. The talk will show how these issues have never been absent, from early satire to current debates on virtual immortality and the effects of AI. The texts will be discussed in light of the notion of “futures of the past” and the concept of post-singularity.
3rd talk: Sara Martín Alegre: The ethical impact of robotics and digital technologies: Carme Torras, from La mutació sentimental to Enxarxats
Carme Torras Genís (Barcelona, 1956) is an internationally renowned scientist specialising in assistive robotics and the author of four novels, as well as a number of short stories published in various anthologies, journals, and a collection. This talk focuses on her two science fiction novels, La mutació sentimental (Pagès Editors, 2008, winner of the 10th Manuel de Pedrolo Prize and the Ictineu Prize) and Enxarxats (Males Herbes, 2017, Ictineu Prize). It is argued that concern about the ethical changes introduced by robotics and digital communication underpins Torras’s science fiction. While in a distant future humans have become dangerously dependent on robots, in Enxarxats, set in the present, people cling to their digital footprint beyond death, creating unsustainable obligations for their heirs. Her work ultimately reflects the risks of technoscience and her ethical commitment as a leading researcher.
4th talk: Sergi Robles: When machines do not behave as expected: hidden risks of AI and intelligent robots
This talk explores a paradox of contemporary technology: AI systems are becoming increasingly capable, yet they also exhibit structural vulnerabilities that are difficult to resolve. Generative AI models learn from large volumes of data drawn from diverse sources, undergo specific fine-tuning, and are designed in a way that does not clearly distinguish between instructions and data. All these factors make them particularly vulnerable to manipulation. When such systems are integrated into robots or autonomous agents, the issue becomes more critical, as they may display undesirable behaviour when making decisions, interacting with the physical world, or controlling real systems. The talk connects these risks with a classic theme in science fiction: the idea that intelligent machines may behave unexpectedly with negative consequences—not because they are malicious, but due to the combination of their way of learning and interpreting the world, which differs from that of humans, and human influence, intentional or otherwise, in their operation.
Round table: Catalan science fiction narrative. Carme Torras, Antoni Munné-Jordà, Sara Martín Alegre and Víctor Martínez-Gil; moderated by Lluc Casals
