THE GUADALAJARA INTERNATIONAL BOOK FAIR FORUM ON NEW PARADIGMS
FOCUSING IN 2021 ON (RELATIVE) FREEDOM
From Wall to Wall is a yearly forum presented by Guadalajara’s International Book Fair as an avenue for debating the main questions arising from the global historic moment we live in from a vantage point that goes beyond scholarly disciplines.
The forum’s name alludes to the long-term vision from which its reflections arise: one that postulates the fall of the Berlin Wall and the –apparently superseded– notion of culminating the erection of a wall between the United States and Mexico as its chronological milestones.
In 2021, From Wall to Wall shall endeavour to pose pertinent questions in order to formulate a contemporary vision of freedom, a notion nowadays facing challenges from many standpoints, from the migratory phenomena taking place in numerous regions across the world through the debate on its limits on social media to the identitary and political claims espoused by many groups around the planet.
In the course of four sessions, we shall explore four lines of thought:
1) the very definition of freedom in the 21st-century
and its coincidences and differences with the notion of democracy;
2) freedom –and particularly freedom of movement– as a concept
that problematizes and transforms the practice of citizenship;
3) the regulation of the digital sphere, and the actors called upon
to define (or not) its reach and its enforcement;
4) freedom of thought and speech and its limits, in view of the need for a new social contract aiming to redress structural inequalities, which is nowadays part of a global social and cultural agenda.
In view of the sanitary emergency still challenging our planet, this year From Wall to Wall shall feature two in-person sessions in FIL Guadalajara as well as two remote sessions. All sessions shall be available to view on this website, as on all websites and social media outlets for both FIL Guadalajara and LatinUs, the media partner with which it is our privilege to collaborate for the second ongoing year.
DATE November 29 thru 30, 2021
VENUES
FIL Guadalajara and LatinUs websites and social media (What is freedom in the 21st-century? and Free on the web)
Expo Guadalajara and FIL Guadalajara and LatinUs websites and social media (Free to roam and Free to be)
SPEAKERS 17 speakers
Its coincidences and differences with the notion of democracy
Freedom of movement as a concept that problematizes and transforms the practice of citizenship
The regulation of the digital sphere, and the actors called upon to define (or not) its reach and its enforcement
Freedom of thought and speech and its limits, in view of the need for a new social contract aiming to redress structural inequalities
Its coincidences and differences with the notion of democracy
Freedom of movement as a concept that problematizes and transforms the practice of citizenship
The regulation of the digital sphere, and the actors called upon to define (or not) its reach and its enforcement
Freedom of thought and speech and its limits, in view of the need for a new social contract aiming to redress structural inequalities
For its fourth edition, organized in conjunction with the Technological Institute of Monterrey’s School of Humanities and the Monterrey International Book Fair, From Wall to Wall devoted its sessions to the new viral (dis)order, in view of the pandemic and the resulting economic, social and cultural crisis, a set of experiences that have upset all our forms of being and doing. Arising from the context of the pandemic, all its sessions were held remotely.
For its third edition, organized on the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall from which its name arises, From Wall to Wall devoted its attention to the forms of civic mobilization derived from that same historic horizon, that is to the new avenues for creating and occupying public space that have kept on arising since November 9th, 1989, when German youth took to the streets of Berlin brandishing mallets and picks in order to reach Brandenburg Gate, tear down a wall and reoccupy a square.
For its second edition, presented in partnership with Mexico City’s Centre for Economic Research and Development (CIDE), From Wall to Wall tackled the crisis facing liberal democracies, manifesting itself in the proliferation and growing radicalization of authoritarian and/or populist régimes arising from democratic elections in European as well as American and Asian nations.
In its first edition, presented in partnership with the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), From Wall to Wall delved upon the risks that the growth of political movements that promote segregation and exclusion represent for the civilizing process.