Hay Festival Arequipa 2021 – Medicine

One area of study that today is experiencing exciting and radical discoveries is neuroscience, with recent new work questioning some very strongly rooted ideas about consciousness, the brain and such like. Ignacio Morgado is one of Spain’s most acclaimed neuroscientists and the author of a number of books of popular science. The most recent is Materia gris (2021), which offers a history of research into and ideas about the mind and the brain, touching on some of the great philosophers of history as well as covering the most recent discoveries by biologists and anatomists. The result is a fascinating look at the subject, from ancient to modern times, offering one of the most complete books about the current debate within the neurosciences. In conversation with the BBC journalist Lucía Blasco.

Francisco Mora (Spain) is a Doctor in Neuroscience, a university professor and the author of popular science books such as ¿Cómo funciona el cerebro? (2017) and the bestseller Neuroeducación (2017). His most recent book is entitled Neuroeducación y lectura (2020) and is a passionate appeal, backed by considerable scientific rigour, to the importance of language and reading as well as the essential role played by the emotions in the processes of learning, attention and memory. This book is a cutting-edge view of our relationship with language, reading and education and covers topics as diverse as the chemical composition of the brain, and so human a process as curiosity. In conversation with the BBC Mundo journalist, Ana Pais.

Losing a loved one was always hard, but the Covid-19 pandemic has made the process worse. Loses have become more awkward; often a relative has gone to the hospital and never been seen again, with no goodbyes possible because of the sanitary constraints. Funerals might be carried out on Zoom, when at all, and the bereaved have not been able to receive hugs of consolation. With all this in mind, this conversation brings together specialists to talk about the different ways of dealing with grief, and they will tell us stories of the uncertainty caused by the fear of death, the fear of loss and testimony of pain and mourning. They will also talk about how people react in different ways during grieving, with different emotional responses when faced with loss: some become depressed, triggering a family crisis, and in other cases people have undergone a process of renewal, and have found the motivation to move on. With the writer Alonso Cueto, the psychoanalyst Moisés Lemlij Malamud and the director of the NGO CEDRO Carmen Masías Claux in conversation with the Head of Content at El Comercio newspaper, Jaime Bedoya.