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Description:

From 12 to 15 May the UAB organises The Apocalypse Is Not Coming (TANC), an international conference in which to reflect on apocalyptic imaginaries and their implications in the context of contemporary ecological, technological and geopolitical crises. The Faculty of Arts  & Humanities will host academic debates, workshops and theatrical performances that question the discourse of the end of the world and propose alternative futures based on research, critical analysis and collective participation.

Apocalyptic imaginaries shape perceptions of fear and influence both thought and action, as well as the effectiveness of certain political discourses that construct distressing and fatalistic future scenarios. TANC aims to question end-of-time ideologies and propose alternatives to contemporary apocalyptic thinking from sociology to ecofeminism and artificial intelligence.

The programme combines academic exchange, artistic practice and collaborative experimentation in two master lectures, nine round tables, ten workshops, four theatrical performances, an audiovisual session and two experimental activities.

The two keynote lectures will be given by Marco Armiero, renowned expert in environmental history, with "Ghosts of the Apocalypse: Capitalist Imaginaries and Silenced Stories", and Malcom Ferdinand, expert in political ecology, environmental justice and decolonial thinking from the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), who will close the event. Armiero will be accompanied in the post-conference debate by Mar Griera, professor of Sociology at the UAB and director of the Research in Sociology of Religion (ISOR) centre, and by Sergio Ruiz Cayuela, postdoctoral researcher at the Barcelona Lab for Urban Environmental Justice and Sustainability (BCNUEJ) of the ICTA-UAB. Ana Fernández-Aballí, Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Religion, Conflict and Globalization at the University of Groningen, and Ione Avila-Palencia, senior researcher at the Centro de Innovación en Tecnología para el Desarrollo (itdUPM) at the Polytechnic University of Madrid, will participate in the debate with Ferdinand.

The round tables will revolve around narratives of permanent crisis; the relationships between ecology, power and coloniality; the social, technological and cultural transformations linked to the end of time, and the possibilities of generating alternative collective responses to these imaginaries.

The workshops will explore alternative ways of thinking, feeling and inhabiting the crisis, combining arts, sciences, humanities and collective practices. They will address the culture of prepping, dominant climate models and audiovisual imaginaries of the end of the world, among other issues.

Finally, four plays developed within the framework of the "Viable Unknowns" project will be performed by the companies Cantieri Meticci (Italy), Voice Lab (Poland), La Xixa Teatre (Spain) and Gruppe Tag (Germany).

The event is the culmination of “Viable Unknowns” and “Ontological Diversity in Environmental Education” (ODEEN), Creative Europe and Horizon Europe projects, respectively, which have brought together social sciences, environmental sciences and participatory theatre methodologies to imagine and promote sustainable and inclusive urban futures. The projects have been carried out over the past year by the UAB and the University of Groningen, together with a transdisciplinary consortium.

Researchers from different UAB centres will be participating in the conference: from Research in Sociology of Religion (ISOR), the Institute of Environmental Science and Technonlogy (ICTA), the Institut d’Història de la Ciència (iHC), the Institut de Govern i Polítiques Públiques (IGOP), and from the departments of Sociology, Journalism and Communication Studies, Art and Musicology, and Business. Experts from the University of Groningen, the Roma Tre University, the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre, the BC3 Basque Center for Climate Change, the University of Barcelona, and the Global Health Institute of Barcelona (ISGlobal) will also be participating. In addition, numerous artists and professionals from cultural groups will also collaborate.

The organising committe of TANC is formed by members of ISOR, the Barcelona Lab for Urban Environmental Science and Technology (BCNUEJ) at ICTA-UAB, and the Centre for Religion, Conflict and Globalization at the University of Groningen, as well as a broad range of external collaborators. The conference receives the support of the Communities Oriented to Strategic Challenges (CORE) of the UAB.

The conference is free and open to all those interested, but prior registration is necessary.

All information on TANC is available here:

https://webs.uab.cat/apocalypse-conf/

Place: UAB Faculty of Arts and Humanities

Date: Tuesday 12, May de 2026 - 09:30h

Date: Friday 15, May de 2026 - 19:30h

Promotor: UAB

Description:

Carme Casablancas, lecturer in the Department of Business of the UAB, has participated in the research project Study of Economic Fakes, promoted by the Marketing, Communication and Business Projection Commission of the Association of Economists of Catalonia. The study, which will be presented on 12 May at the institution's headquarters, aims to analyse the current context in which economic lies and scams using social networks and other channels are increasing exponentially. The presentation will feature interventions by the authors of the project and other prominent economists, as well as by Javier Quesada, head of the Central Unit for Scams and Means of Payment of the Catalan police force.

Place: Association of Economists of Catalonia, Barcelona (Plaça Gal·la Placídia 32)

Date: Tuesday 12, May de 2026 - 18:00h

Description:

The UAB Political Studies, Identities, Institutions and Corruption Research Group, in collaboration with the Termcat Terminology Centre, the Citizen Observatory for Corruption, and the UAB Languages Service, organises the presentation of the online dictionary “Terminology of Corruption and Transparency”. The conference will take place on 13 May at 11:00 a.m., in the entrance hall of the UAB Social Sciences Library. The activity will revolve around the explanation and understanding of the concepts of corruption and transparency, as well as the terminological criteria used in the development of the dictionary and in the analysis of these phenomena.

The session will be moderated by Lluís Ferran Toledano, lecturer in Modern History and member of the GREPIIC research group at the UAB. Participating will be: Olga Cano, head of the UAB Social Sciences Library; Laura Santamaría, vice-rector for Culture and Language Policy of the UAB; Elisabeth Casademont, member of the TERMCAT; Marta Estella, head of the UAB Languages Service; Itziar Gonzalez, member of the Citizen Observatory for Corruption; Gemma Rubí, coordinator of GREPIIC; and Joan Lluís Pérez, professor in Constitutional Law and member of the GREPIIC research group at the UAB.

Place: Social Sciences Library (entrance hall)

Date: Wednesday 13, May de 2026 - 11:00h

Description:

During the Cold War, the tropical rainforests of Latin America—the Darién, the Amazon, the Chocó, the Orinoco plains—were surveyed by aircraft equipped with a radargrammetric technology called SLAR (Side Looking Airborne Radar). This technology could "see" the terrain through the clouds and thick vegetation, which for decades had prevented the creation of maps based on conventional aerial photography. What began as a radar system designed to locate enemy targets ("targeting") ended up producing the first detailed maps of vast tropical regions that until then had appeared "blank" in official atlases.

In this Work in Progress (WiP) seminar, Sebastián Díaz tells the still little-studied history of SLAR. It explores the pioneering projects developed between the 1960s and 1970s in Panama, Colombia, and Brazil, in which Latin American governments, the U.S. military, private companies, and cartographic institutes collaborated to “conquer the jungle” and make it legible. Radargrammetric projects were used to plan new infrastructure, open colonisation roads, inventory minerals and timber, monitor borders, pursue guerrilla groups, and, later, track illicit crops and monitor deforestation.

The central idea of ​​this talk is simple: radar technology never fully transitioned from military to civilian or environmental use. From the outset, SLAR was used simultaneously for warfare, development, resource extraction, and conservation.

And here a final paradox emerges: while from the air these technologies erased people from the landscape, on the ground they demanded enormous verification campaigns—geologists, soil scientists, forestry engineers, biologists, and, at times, anthropologists traversing the jungle for years—which ultimately transformed the paradigms with which the social and environmental sciences understood the tropics. What did not change, however, were the extractive, developmental, and surveillance functions that had given rise to remote sensing, and which have continued to accompany it to this day.

Commentator: Jaume Valentines (UAB)

Sebastián Díaz Ángel is a post-doctoral researcher working on the ERC-SG project "CLIMASAT: Remote-sensing satellite data and the making of global climate in Europe, 1980s–2000s". With a B.A. in Political Science, a B.A. in History, an M.A. in Geography and a Ph.D. in History, Díaz combines environmental history, science and technology studies, and geopolitics, with particular focus on historical geography and the history of cartography. His current research analyzes the politics of remote sensing and satellite data infrastructures in the Americas.

If you are interested in reading the entire text in advance—highly recommended, since the WiP seminar format presupposes prior reading—you can request it from Sebastian.Diaz@uab.cat or Laia.Torres.Casas@uab.cat

Remember that you can bring your lunch on site, as we will have a lunch-seminar format, rigorous and informal at the same time.

Place: iHC Seminar room

Date: Wednesday 13, May de 2026 - 12:00h

Date: Wednesday 13, May de 2026 - 13:30h

Description:

In commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the publication of the human genome and coinciding with International Fascination of Plants Day, the Centre for Research in Agrigenomics (CRAG), in collaboration with the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and the Catalan Society of Biology (SCB), is organising a seminar in the conference hall (Sala d'actes) of the Faculty of Biosciences of the UAB.

Several conferences will be held, starting with Iban Eduardo, IRTA researcher at CRAG, who will give the conference "The genomic revolution in agriculture: implications for domestication and crop improvement". Afterwards, Josep Casacuberta, CSIC professor at CRAG, will give the conference "25 + 1 year of plant genomes: from draft to complete genomes and from single genomes to pangenomes".

The day will continue with the talk "One reference genome is not enough: lessons from population-scale studies", given by Josefa González, CSIC researcher at the Institute of Biomedicine and Biotechnology of the UAB (IBB-UAB). She will be followed by the conference "From the human genome to the genome of Earth: sequencing life to sustain the planet", given by Aurora Ruiz-Herrera, lecturer in the Department of Cellular Biology, Physiology and Immunology of the UAB and ICREA Acadèmia researcher.

The seminar will end with a round table presided by researchers Martí Quevedo, from CRAG, and Laia Marin, from the Department of Cellular Biology, Physiology and Immunology of the UAB.

More information:
https://www.cragenomica.es/events/25-1-years-genomes-evolution-agriculture-and-biodiversity-reimagined

Place: Faculty of Biosciences (conference hall)

Date: Monday 18, May de 2026 - 12:00h

Promotor: CRAG, Catalan Society of Biology (SCB) and the Faculty of Biosciences of the UAB