PICT Joins Jangada Network

The Jangada Network, dedicated to developing the thought and work of author José Saramago, has just launched its official website. Initiated by Burghard Baltrusch, International José Saramago Chair at the University of Vigo and PICT faculty member, the network encompasses the 9 existing José Saramago chairs as well as various other institutions, among them the Paris Institute for Critical Thinking (PICT).

Founded in 2019, the Jangada Network is animated by three key ideas derived from Saramago’s work. Firstly, the network is committed to exploring and developing the idea of transiberianism, which highlights the diversity, complexity, and interrelatedness of the Ibero-Romance world, with a particular focus on minority cultures as well as on Galicia as a foundational building block of this world.

The network’s second area of focus is the “Universal Charter of Duties and Obligations of Human Beings,” first proposed by Saramago during his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1998 and later developed in 2015 by a council of specialists to constitute a complement to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Promoting this charter, which was submitted to the UN in 2018, is one of the networks’ main aims.

Finally, the third idea animating the network concerns an awareness that we can only achieve momentous and necessary change if we are prepared to take up extra-systemic positions at the right times. With its goal to take learning, scholarship, and discussion about the Arts and Humanities out of the academic milieu and open it up to the general public, PICT views itself as trying to set a concrete example of this idea.

Here are the links to the Jangada Network website as well as its page dedicated to PICT. Congratulations to Burghard and the entire Jangada team on their efforts to not only promote the work of José Saramago, but also develop it in its relevance to the present day!