Eduard Roure Blàvia, author of the novel ‘El metall i els turons’, will take part in a unique activity that will combine nature and literature, next 21st September in his town, Torregrossa (Lleida). It is a walk around the village that will culminate with the presentation of the book by the writer.

The work, winner of the XXIX Premi de Novel-la ‘Valldaura- Memorial Pere Calders’ in 2023, organised by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and the Ajuntament de Cerdanyola del Vallès, explores the social conflicts and conflicting interests that exist in a village in the interior of Catalonia. Through a plot rich in intrigue and corruption, the author paints an in-depth portrait of the inhabitants of a tense territory. The walk, which is expected to last about fifty minutes, will start at 5.30 p.m., at Plaça 11 de setembre in Torregrossa, and will end at the Cabana de la partida de Paradell. The activity proposes to visit places that could be scenes from the novel, in a setting that evokes the conflicts described in the work. At the end, there will be a conversation with the author, where participants will have the opportunity to learn more details about the novel and share impressions with him in a privileged natural environment.

Source: https://femllavor.blogspot.com/

The 84th edition of the Fira del Llibre de Madrid will be held from 30 May to 15 June. The Servei de Publicacions de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona is exhibiting some of its new publications for the 2024-2025 academic year at the stand of the Unión de Editoriales Universitarias Españolas (UNE).

This year, the fair revalidates the strategic space of the Plaça de la Ciència i les Universitats which, from 2023, improves the presence of university publishers and research centres.

On this occasion, the UAB publishing house will present titles such as Pensar amb el paladar. Una estética gustatoria, by Jèssica Jaques and Gerard Vilar; Feminismo no es sexismo. Conversations on gender and inequality, by María Jesús Izquierdo and Marc Barbeta, and Economía circular. El camino hacia la sostenibilidad, by Joan Rieradevall and Carles Gasol.

Doctors Joan Rieradevall Pons and Carles Gasol Martínez will talk about their book ‘Economía circular. El camino hacia la sostenibilidad’, on Thursday 5 June, at 6 p.m., at the Mundana space in Barcelona (Calle Aribau, 34).

Coinciding with World Environment Day, the authors will talk with the co-founders of the shop, Anna and Jaume Colomer, about the policies, indicators, tools and innovation strategies that reduce the environmental impact of consumption, and which are carried out in this space located in the heart of Barcelona's Eixample.

The event is part of a programme that the space has organised for 4 and 5 June, which also includes other activities such as special sales, with the presence of fashion and accessories designers Cristina Korres and Joan Sales (Dino JSJ).

A sustainable pairing

Since its founding in June 2019, Mundana as been committed to responsible sales and consumption, with durable products that are not governed by trends. Its founders have conceived the shop as a meeting place ‘for those who make and for those who are looking for products outside the usual circuits’. In this way, the space at Calle Aribau 34 is a refuge offering a selection of icons that transcend time, and new interpretations of the most everyday standards. Origin aside, Mundana believes in a sustainability linked to the use and maintenance of the products, fleeing from those articles that the trend makes perish too early.

A perfect pairing with the book ‘Economía circular. El camino hacia la sostenibilidad’, which proposes the circular economy as one of the decisive strategies for achieving sustainable development. In the book, professors of Chemical, Biological and Environmental Engineering Joan Rieradevall Pons and Carles Gasol Martínez present case studies, indicators, tools and strategies for innovation, prevention and minimisation of resources, as well as examples of circular eco-design and global improvement of products and services to demonstrate that a completely circular future is possible.

The UAB Publications Service has been responsible for publishing the book, which is available in paper format for a fee and free open-access electronic format.

Dialogue on the book ‘Circular Economy. On the road to sustainability’.

Day: Thursday, 5 June

Time: 6 p.m.

Place: Mundana (Calle Aribau 34, 08011 Barcelona)

Please confirm your attendance at: info@mundanalife.com

The Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and the City Council of Cerdanyola del Vallès have announced a new edition of the Literary Awards for 2025. The original works can be submitted from Friday 13 December via the form on the competition's website.

The cultural event, which aims to promote the dissemination of original and unpublished works written in the Catalan language, will be held once again this year with the following types of prizes and financial awards:

• XXXI ‘Valldaura-Memorial Pere Calders’ Novel Prize, worth 3,000 euros. 
• XXX Prize for Poetry ‘Miquel Martí i Pol’, with a prize of 1,000 euros. 
• XVI ‘Caterina Albert’ Short Narrative Prize, with a prize of 500 euros. 

The deadline for submission of original works is Friday 7 February 2025. As usual, the method of submission will be via an online form on the website of the awards, where you can also consult the rules for each award and follow the news of the evolution of the contest.

The winners of this new edition will be announced at an awards ceremony to be held in May.

The winning books of 2024 

The winning works of the 2024 edition, Ilha do Farol, by Miquel Ribas Figueras; Ballar amb els espectres, by Josep Antoni Aguilar Àvila; Eixint de fer, by Josep Domènech Ponsatí; and Pausa, sucre, Sevilla, by Carla Clúa Alcón, have been published by the UAB Publications Service and can now be purchased in print and electronic format on the website of the university publishing house (the short narrative work is only available in open access electronic format).

Desinformación y poder. Alquimias de la persuasión is the latest title in the ‘Aldea Global’ collection, which is co-published by the university publishers: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Universitat Jaume I, Universitat Pompeu Fabra and Universitat de València. The book is the work of Raúl Rodríguez Ferrándiz, Professor of Semiotics of Mass Communication at the University of Alicante, who specialises in post-truth politics, disinformation, conspiracy theories and ‘fake news’.

In Desinformación y poder. Alquimias de la persuasión, the author dismantles the slogan ‘information is power’, to open our eyes to a current media society where truth has become the true value that is traded on the market: it is privatised, viralised and monetised without any relation to the facts. This book provides a brief introduction to ‘trumpology’, the Cambridge Analytica case and computational propaganda, the Pizzagate case and the role of Wikileaks, but also refers to those who contribute to polarisation by attacking immigration, feminism or LGTBI rights. It discusses the content (in)moderation strategies of Facebook and X, and the advertisers who fund, often unwittingly, pseudo-media that spread misleading news or promote hate, the conspiracies that lied with the ‘plandemia’ story when the virus arrived, and now continue to deny climate change or scare with the Great Replacement. It analyses our penchant for rumours and novelistic lies and for sharing them for a handful of ‘likes’. Finally, a coda is dedicated to the DANA that hit the province of Valencia and Trump's second victory in the US elections.

The work has been selected by the Unión de Editoriales Universitarias Españolas (UNE) to star in the twenty-sixth episode of its podcast ‘Libros para comprender’. The episode is a conversation with Raúl Rodríguez Ferrándiz and Maite Simón, author and editor of PUV (Publicaciones de València), respectively. The programme can be listened to on the main podcasting platforms (Spotify, Apple Podcast, YouTube Podcast and iVoox) and also seen on YouTube Podcast, through the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1daLMPUbjk.

On Thursday 13 February, at 7 p.m., the book will be presented at the Documenta bookshop in Barcelona (Carrer de Pau Claris, 144), with the following speakers: Virginia Luzón Fernández, Professor of Audiovisual Communication and Advertising and Vice Rector of Communication at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona; Catalina Gayà Morlà, Serra Hunter Lecturer in the Department of Media, Communication and Culture at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and member of the Board of Aldea Global; and Raúl Rodríguez Ferrándiz, Professor of Semiotics of Mass Communication at the University of Alicante and author of the book.

On Tuesday 15 October, at 1pm, the Faculty of Law of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) will host the presentation of the InnovaDret Group, as part of the University's Innovation Week.

The conference will include a talk entitled ‘Teaching innovation as the backbone of the Law degree’, given by Dr. Josep Cañabate Pérez, coordinator of InnovaDret; a debate focused on the work in the Service Learning (ApS) modality; and the presentation of the first volume of the book series ‘InnovaDret’, published by the UAB Publications Service last June.

The book is entitled Innovació docent i aprenentatge jurídic. Desafiaments i oportunitats del nou model docent del grau de Dret and gathers the works presented by the professors of the research group in the periodic seminars that have been developed in the same Faculty. The work focuses on teaching innovation within the new model of the Bachelor's Degree in Law and aims to share experiences and tools to improve teaching practice.

More information about the conference at: https://webs.uab.cat/setmanainnovacio/activitats-2024/innovadret/

The presentation of the fourth volume of the poetry collection “Álbumes Versàlia” will take place on Thursday, January 16, at 6:30 p.m., at the Jaimes bookstore in Barcelona (Valencia street, 318).

The latest book is entitled Por/Poder and is illustrated with twenty-seven drawings by the painter Jerónimo Prieto. The volume brings together the contributions of thirty-one poets on the chosen theme, headed by the poet and translator Arnau Pons and the poet Chantal Maillard, who, with texts written expressly for the occasion, open the first section: Caplletres.

The second is an anthology of poems from different periods and languages on the theme, freely commented afterwards by a large number of poets, such as Nuria Busquet, Eduardo Moga, Josep Mi. Ripoll, Gemma Arimany, Emilia Conejo, Esteban Martínez Serra, Víctor Obiols, Xavier Farré, Luz Pichel, Josep Gerona Fumara, Jordi Llavina, Raquel Casas, Jaume Creus, or Joaquim Sala-Sanahuja, among others.

In the third section, all the participating poets offer us their unpublished poems. And the book closes with an appendix with the original versions of the translated poems.

The presentation will consist of the reading of some of the poems commented by the poets participating in the edition of the book: Víctor Obiols, Jaume Creus, Gemma Arimany, Empar Sàez, Susanna Gonzàlez Túrigas, Víctor Mañosa, Josep Ma. Ripoll, Eduardo Moga, Esteban Martínez Serra, Arnau Pons and Josep Gerona Fumàs.

The presentation of the fourth volume of the poetry collection ‘Álbumes Versàlia’ will take place on Thursday 28 November at 7 p.m. in the auditorium of the Casal Pere Quart in Sabadell (Carrer de Lacy, 11).

The latest book is entitled Por/Poder and is illustrated with twenty-seven drawings by the painter Jerónimo Prieto. The volume brings together the contributions of thirty-one poets on the chosen theme, headed by the poet and translator Arnau Pons and the poet Chantal Maillard, who, with texts written expressly for the occasion, open the first section: Caplletres.

The second is an anthology of poems from different periods and languages on the theme, freely commented on afterwards by a large number of poets, such as Nuria Busquet, Eduardo Moga, Josep Mi. Ripoll, Gemma Arimany, Emilia Conejo, Esteban Martínez Serra, Víctor Obiols, Xavier Farré, Luz Pichel, Josep Gerona Fumara, Jordi Llavina, Raquel Casas, Jaume Creus, and Joaquim Sala-Sanahuja, among others.

In the third section, all the participating poets offer us their unpublished poems. The book closes with an appendix containing the original versions of the poems translated.

The presentation ceremony will consist of the reading of some of the poems with commentary by the actors Enric López and Mi. Antonia Bartolí, and with the musical intervention of Joan Alavedra on the accordion.

The Casal de Barri Transformadors in Barcelona hosted the presentation of the book Feminismo no es sexismo. Conversations on gender and inequality, from the collection ‘El espejo y la lámpara’ by Edicions UAB. The book proposes a critical reflection on the displacement that part of the feminist discourse has suffered. María Jesús Izquierdo and Marc Barbeta-Viñas, members of the UAB Department of Sociology and authors of the book, took part in the event. It took place on 20 March, at 19h.

This work proposes a critical reflection on the displacement that part of the feminist discourse has undergone, both in terms of the analysis of social reality and in terms of the movement's objectives. The text begins with a discussion between Marc Barbeta-Viñas and María Jesús Izquierdo, one of the most relevant sociologists in the study of gender inequality, and moves on to the main issues that currently occupy the feminist agenda and discourse.

Book sample:

https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=Ja03EQAAQBAJ&pg=GBS.PA6&hl=ca

The books of the 2024 edition of the Literary Awards, jointly organised every year by the City Council of Cerdanyola del Vallès and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, were presented yesterday, Thursday 7 November, at 1pm, at the Institut Pozas in Cerdanyola del Vallès (Calle del Águila, 65).

The winners were announced last May at the awards ceremony held at the UAB. Carla Clúa Alcón, with her work Pausa, sucre, Sevilla, was the winner of the 15th ‘Caterina Albert’ short story prize for young people. Josep Antoni Aguilar Àvila, with the work Ballar amb els espectres, and Josep Domènech Ponsatí, with the work Eixint de fer, were declared ex-aequo winners of the 29th ‘Miquel Martí i Pol’ poetry prize. Miquel Ribas Figueras, with his work Ilha do Farol, became the winner of the XXX ‘Valldaura-Memorial Pere Calders’ novel prize.

The event was attended by the Mayor of Cerdanyola del Vallès, Carlos Cordón; the Councillor for Education of Cerdanyola del Vallès, Pilar Adell; the Vice-Rector for Innovation, Transfer and Entrepreneurship of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Rosa María Sebastián; and the authors Josep Domènech Ponsatí and Miquel Ribas. Carla Clúa Alcón (Tarragona) and Josep Antoni Aguilar Àvila (València) were present, through videos with a few words of gratitude for the publication of their books.

The final part of the event included the presentation of the terms and conditions of the Literary Awards 2025, which will open for submissions on 13 December.