Hay Festival Cartagena 2023

The people of this planet use energy. In recent decades, the exponential increase in the population and the consumption of fossil fuels have caused irreversible damage, and we must change our ways. It is a matter of the greatest urgency to undertake global climate action through the reduction of emissions, to make great efforts to adapt, and to channel appropriate funding flows. This needs to happen as part of an integrated framework of sustainable development that will tackle poverty, hunger and unemployment, and improve the empowerment of young, Afro-descendent, indigenous and LGTBIQ+ people, as well as local communities and women; this is a transition that needs to have the planet at its heart. Our guests will talk to Ricardo Chica about this important challenge for humanity. With Jazmín Romero (Colombia), legal representative of the Wayuu Feminist Movement; Maira Alejandra Jayariyu (Colombia), communicator for Fuerza Wayuu; and Nohora Alejandra Quiguantar (Colombia), representative of the Pasto indigenous village of the Muellamués community.

How has the role of light in understanding the universe changed, and how is it still changing? In 2012, Serge Haroche (France) was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics, together with David J. Wineland, for his innovative work in the field of quantum optics. Their discoveries make use of the properties of light particles to create new technologies, such as ultrafast quantum computers. With The Science of Light: From Galileo’s Telescope to Quantum Physics, this Nobel laureate offers a revealing narrative about what we now know about light, from relativity theory to quantum physics, about how we have learned it and how this knowledge has led to many inventions that have changed our lives. In conversation with Diana Calderón Fernández.

Simultaneous interpreting from English to Spanish available

In 2016, the data agency Cambridge Analytica manipulated, through Facebook, the information received by over 86 million users to influence the result of the US presidential elections and the Brexit referendum that same year. Carole Cadwalladr, a British investigative journalist who works for The Guardian, was the one who broke the scandal. Although Cambridge Analytica no longer exists, there are other companies that are still involved in similar practices. At this event, Cadwalladr will talk about the personal and professional consequences that she continues to face to this day for making her investigation public, and she will also discuss the importance of freedom of speech for democracy. In conversation with Emma Graham-Harrison.

Simultaneous interpreting from English to Spanish available

We humans like to believe that we act rationally, but the emotions are a much more important part of experience that most of us think. Richard Firth-Godbehere has put his thoughts on this matter into his book A Human History of Emotion, which analyses and studies the role of human emotions throughout history and in different cultures. In conversation with Daniel Pardo, the author will talk about how the emotions, in all their complexity and diversity, have modelled the world that we live in over the course of history. This fascinating work of non-fiction weaves together psychology, neuroscience, art, philosophy and religion.

Simultaneous interpreting from English to Spanish available

The Internet is a powerful instrument, yet also a double-edged sword: it has opened up information that can be accessed cheaply and immediately, in an unprecedented transformation; but it is also a medium that, with the social media, has submitted many people to manipulation and addiction. Another unsettling aspect is that we can now no longer imagine a world without the Internet, a tool that just a few decades ago did not even exist. Esther Paniagua (Spain) is a writer and journalist who specializes in matters related to science and technology. Her brilliant and bold essay Error 404. ¿Preparados para un mundo sin internet? (2021), proposes a vision of what would happen if we were suddenly left without the Internet. How far are we from a life without connection to the web? Perhaps we are closer than we suspect. In conversation with the journalist Inés Santaeulalia.

How has the role of light in understanding the universe changed, and how is it still changing? In 2012, Serge Haroche (France) was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics, together with David J. Wineland, for his innovative work in the field of quantum optics. Their discoveries make use of the properties of light particles to create new technologies, such as ultrafast quantum computers. With The Science of Light: From Galileo’s Telescope to Quantum Physics, this Nobel laureate offers a revealing narrative about what we now know about light, from relativity theory to quantum physics, about how we have learned it and how this knowledge has led to many inventions that have changed our lives. In conversation with Rafael González.

Simultaneous interpreting from French to Spanish available

Esther Paniagua in conversation with Nelson Jiménez