Defenses de tesi

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, May2026 - 09:30h

End date: Friday 15, May2026 - 19:30h

Organiser: UAB

Description:

Do you throw away a lot of clothes and, at the same time, continue buying more and more every week? There are much more sustainable ways to renew your wardrobe! The Environment volunteer group of the Fundació Autònoma Solidària (FAS) will hold a second-hand clothing exchange market.

The initiative seeks to raise awareness in the community about the serious environmental impacts of the fashion industry. Each European buys around 19 kg of clothes per year and throws away 16, which results in the emission of 159 million tonnes of CO₂ into the atmosphere.

Give your clothes a second life and help reduce this impact! If you leave your clothes at the FAS offices (at the Plaça Cívica from 10 am to 5 pm), you will receive a voucher to choose another garment on the day of the market completely free of charge. In the event that some people wish to buy without bringing clothes, all items will be priced at 1 euro on the day of the market.

If you have any questions, write to fas.mediambient@gmail.com.

Date: Tuesday 12, May2026 - 11:30h

End date: Tuesday 12, May2026 - 15:30h

Description:

On 12 May the Faculty of Law of the UAB will host the annual spring meeting of AIACE-ES in Catalonia 2026, which this year coincides with the commemoration of the 40th anniversary of Spain's entry into the European Economic Community (later renamed the European Union). The meeting will bring together former officials of the Union. It will take place at the European Documentation Centre and will feature speeches by Ricardo Esteban, dean of the Faculty of Law; Maruja Gutíerrez, president of AIACE-ES; Carles Gasòliba, former secretary general of the Board of Trustees and former member of the European Parliament; Xavier Prats, former director general of Education, Culture and Health of the European Commission; Josep Maria de Dios, director of the Institute of European Studies of the UAB; and Vicenç Pedret, of AIACE-ES in Catalonia.

Place: European Documentation Centre (Faculty of Law)

Date: Tuesday 12, May2026 - 15:00h

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, May2026 - 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, May2026 - 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, May2026 - 12:00h

End date: Wednesday 13, May2026 - 13:30h