Researchers and experts from Belgium, Argentina, Mexico, Italy and different parts of Spain gathered at UIC Barcelona for the Second Seminar on Phenomenology of the Body and Experiences of Joy, which took place from 22 to 24 November. The main objective of this meeting, organised by the Faculty of Humanities and coordinated by Xavier Escribano, senior lecturer and researcher at UIC Barcelona, was to bring together experts in philosophy and, particularly in the line of phenomenology, a movement that mainly researches and describes our experience as human beings from different perspectives.

After years of research on pain, these sessions focused on the dimension of corporeality—the experience we humans have of the body—specifically on the experiences of pleasure, joy and gladness. “There is much talk about pain and death, but not so much about pleasure and life. We are now exploring the experience of human joy from the standpoint of our corporeal incarnation and how this translates into bodily expressiveness, in our corporeal relationships with the world and with others,” Escribano explained.

This is the second session of the second series of meetings organised as part of the project led by Agustín Serrano de Haro from the Institute of Philosophy of the Higher Council of Scientific Research (CSIC), with the cooperation of the Anthropology of Corporality (SARX) research group and that, according to Escribano, meant receiving top international researchers who come to UIC Barcelona to share the outcome of many years of work and study. “The value of these sessions is having the opportunity to listen to a lively philosophical dialogue by leading experts. A high-level philosophical discussion on a very relevant topic that has implications in the field of health and interpersonal relationships,” the professor stated.

The SARX group is one of UIC Barcelona’s 24 research groups, recognised by the Generalitat de Catalunya in the SGR-Cat 2021 call, whose objective is to promote scientific, economic and social activity and impact as well as to further international projection. SARX’s main objective is to approach the multiple dimensions of human corporality from an integrative perspective of humanistic, scientific and artistic knowledge, to offer a new paradigm of understanding the human body that goes beyond the mutually exclusive discourses of natural sciences and human sciences and facilitates non-conventional global and cross-disciplinary understanding.

Xavier Escribano himself explains the objective of these conferences: