IAFOR > The Barcelona Conference on Education (BCE) > BCE2023

BCE2023

19–23 September, 2023 | Held in Barcelona, Spain (and online)

Barcelona is a city that never fails to deliver excitement and stimulation, and this vibrant cultural hub is always a great setting for an IAFOR event. This year was no different and over 350 delegates from more than 65 countries attended The 4th Barcelona Conference on Education (BCE2023), held alongside The 4th Barcelona Conference on Arts, Media & Culture (BAMC2023).

Conference Report
Download the Conference Programme
Conference Proceedings
Virtual Presentations

Plenary Speakers

  • Isabel Alonso-Breto
    Isabel Alonso-Breto
    University of Barcelona, Spain
  • Sue Ballyn
    Sue Ballyn
    University of Barcelona, Spain
  • Núria Casado-Gual
    Núria Casado-Gual
    University of Lleida, Spain
  • Donald E. Hall
    Donald E. Hall
    Binghamton University, United States
  • Daniel Lutz
    Daniel Lutz
    Purrple, Spain
  • David Mallows
    David Mallows
    UCL Institute of Education, United Kingdom
  • Raquel Medina
    Raquel Medina
    Aston University, United Kingdom
  • Inesa Shevchenko
    Inesa Shevchenko
    University of Lleida, Spain
  • Kateřina Valentová
    Kateřina Valentová
    University of Lleida, Spain

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Programme

  • There Is No New Normal
    There Is No New Normal
    Keynote Presentation: Donald Hall
  • Digital Literacy and Digital Inclusion: Reading the Digital World
    Digital Literacy and Digital Inclusion: Reading the Digital World
    Keynote Presentation: David Mallows
  • Old Age in the Spotlight: Towards an Anti-ageist Theatre in the Times of the ‘New Normal’
    Old Age in the Spotlight: Towards an Anti-ageist Theatre in the Times of the ‘New Normal’
    Keynote Presentation: Núria Casado-Gual
  • Contemporary Cultural Representations of Ageing: Deconstructing Ageism
    Contemporary Cultural Representations of Ageing: Deconstructing Ageism
    Featured Panel Presentation: Raquel Medina, Inesa Shevchenko, Kateřina Valentová
  • Want Happiness? Become an Artist
    Want Happiness? Become an Artist
    Keynote Presentation: Daniel Lutz
  • I Shall Be Brief: Spare Thoughts on Literature and Care
    I Shall Be Brief: Spare Thoughts on Literature and Care
    Keynote Presentation: Isabel Alonso-Breto

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Conference Review Committee

Dr Bankole Akinwande, Adeyemi Federal University of Education, Nigeria
Dr Supriya Banerjee, Amity University, Uzbekistan
Dr Amel Beldjenna, University of Oran 2, Algeria
Professor Cristina Caridade, Politechnic Institute of Coimbra, Portugal
Dr Joanie Crandall, Yorkville University, Canada
Dr Abdelkrim Dekhakhena, 8 Mai 1945 Guelma University, Algeria
Dr Edgar R. Eslit, St. Michael's College, Iligan City, Philippines
Dr Leslie Haas, Xavier University of Louisiana, United States
Dr Alexander Ibni, Zamboanga Peninsula Polytechnic State University, Philippines
Dr Martha Khosa, University of Free State, South Africa
Dr Giraldo De La Caridad León Rodríguez, ECOTEC University, Ecuador
Dr Hong Li, Emory University, United States
Dr Ayşegül Liman Kaban, Bahcesehir University, Turkey
Dr Maria Teresa Matriano, Middle East College, Oman
Dr Loredana Muscat, Institute for Education, Malta
Dr Angela Mary Nicol, All Saints' College, Australia
Professor Mario Pace, University of Malta, Malta
Dr Hongzhuan Song, Nazareth College of Rochester, United States

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Isabel Alonso-Breto
University of Barcelona, Spain

Biography

Isabel Alonso-Breto is a senior lecturer in Postcolonial Literatures in English at the University of Barcelona in Spain. Her research interests have focused on Postcolonial literatures in English with an emphasis on cultural intersections, migration and diasporas. Her latest publications include 'The pain becomes the poem': An Interview with Jean Arasanayagam; Only Sow Words: Cheran’s A Second Sunrise as Postcolonial Autobiography; 'Don’t be sorry. We didn’t do this’: Diaspora Choices in Vasugi Ganeshananthan’s Love Marriage; The Ethics of Care in the No Fire Zone: Anuk Arudpragasam's The Story of a Brief Marriage; and Ocean as Heritage: An Interview with Cheran.

She is a member of the research groups Ratnakara: Literatures and Cultures of the Indian Ocean and CELCA, Centre for the Study of English Literatures and Cultures, and of the UB Centre for Australian and Transnational Studies, in Spain, and of the Partnership Studies Group at the University of Udine in Italy.

Her most recent work focuses on the connections between literature and the ethics of care, where she is completing a monograph study. Besides the occasional translator, she is the author of the poetry collection Elogio de la tabla de surf y otros poemas desde el cáncer de mama (2021), translated into English as The Red Sea: Poetry from Cancer and Beyond, soon to be published.

Keynote Presentation (2023) | I Shall Be Brief: Spare Thoughts on Literature and Care

Previous Presentations

Interview Session (2021) | Brexit, Borders and the Gibraltarian Voice: a Conversation With M.G.Sanchez
Discussion Panel (2020) | In Conversation with Gloria Montero
Sue Ballyn
University of Barcelona, Spain

Biography

Dr Sue Ballyn is the Founder of the Centre for Australian and Transnational Studies Centre at the University of Barcelona from where she graduated with a BA in 1982. Her MA thesis on the writings of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes won the Faculty prize in 1983. In 1986 she won the Faculty prize again, this time for her PhD thesis on Australian Poetry, the first PhD on Australian Literature in Spain.

She joined the English and German Philology Department upon graduation 1982 and has remained at the university ever since. In 1987 she was awarded an ASAL Familiarisation Grant and spent six weeks in Australia. In 1990 she founded the Australian Studies Program, recognised as an official University of Barcelona Observatory - Studies Centre in 2000, known as CEA, Observatorio Centre d’Estudis Australians, now the Australian and Transnational Studies Centre (CEAT). It is the only Australian Studies Centre in Spain and one of the most active in Europe.

Over the last twenty-five years, Sue Ballyn’s research has focused on foreign convicts transported to Australia, particularly Spanish, Portuguese, Hispanics and Sephardim. She works closely with the Female Convicts Research Centre, Tasmania. She has published and lectured widely in the area, very often in collaboration with Professor Lucy Frost, including a book on Adelaide de la Thoreza, a Spanish convict, which was published in 2018.

More recently she has been involved in a project on ageing in literature DEDAL-LIT at Lleida University which in turn formed part of a European project on ageing: SIforAge. As part of this project she is working on Human Rights and the Elderly, an area she started to research in 1992. A book of interviews with elderly women, with the working title Stories of Experience, will be published as a result of this project. These oral stories are drawn from field work she has carried out in Barcelona.

She was recently involved in a ministry funded Project, run out of the Australian Studies Centre and headed by Dr Bill Phillips, on Postcolonial Crime Fiction (POCRIF). This last project has inevitably intertwined itself with her work on convicts and Australia. Her present work focuses on Sephardi Jews in the Asian diaspora, and the construction of ageing.

Previous Presentations

Featured Interview (2022): “A Conversation with Poet Silvia Cuevas-Morales”
Núria Casado-Gual
University of Lleida, Spain

Biography

Núria Casado-Gual is Associate Professor at the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures of the University of Lleida (Catalonia, Spain), where she teaches literature and drama in English and directs a theatre workshop since 2013. As a member of the research group Grup Dedal-Lit, which has focused on ageing studies and literature for more than two decades, she has conducted research on theatrical, literary and cinematic representations of ageing. As the group’s Principal Investigator between 2013 and 2022, she led three competitive projects in the field of cultural gerontology that examined the intersection between age, gender and creativity, as well as narrative expressions of later life. She has co-edited three volumes of essays on literary representations of ageing and a special issue on age and performance for Theatre Research in Canada, and has published chapters and articles on cultural interpretations of old age in relevant volumes for the field as well as in international journals such as Aging & Society, The Gerontologist, New Theatre Quarterly, and Feminist Media Studies. Núria Casado-Gual is also a theatre practitioner, and part of her creative work as a playwright is closely related to her research. Eight of her plays have been published to date in Catalan and English.

Keynote Presentation (2023): Old Age in the Spotlight: Towards an Anti-ageist Theatre in the Times of the ‘New Normal’
Donald E. Hall
Binghamton University, United States

Biography

Donald E. Hall is Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs at Binghamton University (SUNY), USA. He was formerly Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering at the University of Rochester, USA, and held a previous position as Dean of Arts and Sciences at Lehigh University, USA. Provost Hall has published widely in the fields of British Studies, Gender Theory, Cultural Studies, and Professional Studies. Over the course of his career, he served as Jackson Distinguished Professor of English and Chair of the Department of English (and previously Chair of the Department of Foreign Languages) at West Virginia University. Before that, he was Professor of English and Chair of the Department of English at California State University, Northridge, where he taught for 13 years. He is a recipient of the University Distinguished Teaching Award at CSUN, was a visiting professor at the National University of Rwanda, was Lansdowne Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the University of Victoria (Canada), was Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Cultural Studies at Karl Franzens University in Graz, Austria, and was Fulbright Specialist at the University of Helsinki. He has also taught in Sweden, Romania, Hungary, and China. He served on numerous panels and committees for the Modern Language Association (MLA), including the Task Force on Evaluating Scholarship for Tenure and Promotion, and the Convention Program Committee. In 2012, he served as national President of the Association of Departments of English. From 2013-2017, he served on the Executive Council of the MLA.

His current and forthcoming work examines issues such as professional responsibility and academic community-building, the dialogics of social change and activist intellectualism, and the Victorian (and our continuing) interest in the deployment of instrumental agency over our social, vocational, and sexual selves. Among his many books and editions are the influential faculty development guides, The Academic Self and The Academic Community, both published by Ohio State University Press. Subjectivities and Reading Sexualities: Hermeneutic Theory and the Future of Queer Studies were both published by Routledge Press. Most recently he and Annamarie Jagose, of the University of Auckland, co-edited a volume titled The Routledge Queer Studies Reader. Though he is a full-time administrator, he continues to lecture worldwide on the value of a liberal arts education and the need for nurturing global competencies in students and interdisciplinary dialogue in and beyond the classroom.

Professor Donald E. Hall is a Vice-President of IAFOR. He is Chair of the Arts, Humanities, Media & Culture division of the International Academic Advisory Board.

Keynote Presentation (2024): The Work of the University in Perilous Times
Keynote Presentation (2023): There Is No New Normal
Daniel Lutz
Purrple, Spain

Biography

Born in Canada, Daniel has lived in South America, the Netherlands, Switzerland and now Spain.

Having begun his professional career as a theatre and English teacher at an international school in Caracas, Venezuela, Daniel recognised early on the potential in computer-assisted learning and co-founded one of the first educational multimedia companies in Europe. His company, Human Shareware, was one of 16 companies invited by the Dutch Ministry of Trade and Economic Affairs to take part in a trade mission to Australia, on the theme of innovation.

Bridging the worlds of interactive and broadcast media has been an ongoing theme in Daniel’s work. For almost a decade, he was a mentor and curriculum designer for an EU-funded initiative enabling European broadcasters to transition successfully from analogue to digital programming and has been an award-winning copywriter and cross-media concept developer for many of the world’s most prominent ad agencies.

Trying a different kind of impact, Daniel moved to Switzerland and began working for the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the UN organisation responsible for information and communication technologies. There he conceived and managed numerous campaigns on such themes as climate change and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). He then worked for the Better Cotton Initiative, rebranding the organisation, developing their first suite of communication materials and setting them on the path for rapid expansion.

Since 2015, Daniel has worked as an independent communication strategist, with a diverse client base comprising Fortune 500 companies, UN and NGOs, and start-ups. He brings a strong behavioural design understanding to all his communication and strategy work.

Keynote Presentation (2023): Want Happiness? Become an Artist
David Mallows
UCL Institute of Education, United Kingdom

Biography

Dr David Mallows serves as an Associate Professor at the UCL Institute of Education in the United Kingdom, where he also directs the IOE Academic Writing Centre. With over 35 years of experience in adult education, he has contributed significantly as a teacher, trainer, and researcher. His past roles include training future ESOL teachers and managing CELTA and other initial and continuing training programs.

Dr Mallows also held the position of Director of Research at the National Research and Development Centre for Adult Literacy and Numeracy (NRDC), directing a diverse range of research projects on adult literacy, language, and numeracy. He currently collaborates with colleagues across Spain, Brazil, and Portugal on adult education research.

In addition to his research endeavours, Dr Mallows contributes to the UCL Institute of Education's MA TESOL program, leading the English Language Teaching Classroom Practice module. His research interests and dedication to adult education make him a supportive advisor for PhD students in related fields.

Keynote Presentation (2023): Digital Literacy and Digital Inclusion: Reading the Digital World
Raquel Medina
Aston University, United Kingdom

Biography

Raquel Medina is a visiting research fellow at Aston University and Dean of Area Studies at IES Abroad Barcelona. She is the author of Cinematic Representations of Alzheimer’s Disease and Surrealismo en la poesía española de posguerra. She has served as co-editor of Sexualidad y escritura Envejecimientos y cines ibéricos, Tecnologías de la edad and The Bloomsbury Handbook to Ageing in Contemporary Literature and Film. She has published numerous articles, book chapters, and reviews on cultural representations of ageing and dementia, contemporary Spanish poetry, women writers, film, and cultural studies. She is the director of the research network CinemAGEnder and co-director of the Dementia and Cultural Narrative Network.

Featured Panel Presentation (2023) | Contemporary Cultural Representations of Ageing: Deconstructing Ageism
Inesa Shevchenko
University of Lleida, Spain

Biography

Inesa Shevchenko holds a master’s degree in Secondary Education Teacher Training and Language Teaching from the University of Lleida (Catalonia, Spain). She is currently developing her doctoral thesis on the representations of female ageing in contemporary dramatic texts mainly by English-speaking playwrights, and which is supervised by Dr Núria Casado-Gual, with whom she has co-authored several articles and scientific communications presented at national and international conferences. Her research interests include cultural gerontology, theatre, gender, and LGBTQ+ studies. Member of the European Network of Ageing Studies (ENAS), Spanish Association of Anglo-American Studies (AEDEAN), The Institute for Social and Territorial Development (INDEST), and the research groups CELCA and Dedal-Lit (UdL), she co-teaches as an adjunct lecturer at the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at the University of Lleida.

Featured Panel Presentation (2023) | Contemporary Cultural Representations of Ageing: Deconstructing Ageism
Kateřina Valentová
University of Lleida, Spain

Biography

Kateřina Valentová holds a PhD in the Territory, Heritage and Culture program of the University de Lleida (2018). Her doctoral thesis focused on the value of nonverbal elements in naturalist texts of Spanish and French tradition. She works as an assistant lecturer at the University of Lleida, in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures where she teaches Comparative Literature, Autobiography, and Creative Writing. She is an active member of the European Network of Ageing Studies (ENAS) and her research focuses on comics studies, and life writing. Currently she is participating in a research project on ageing at the University of Lleida.

Featured Panel Presentation (2023) | Contemporary Cultural Representations of Ageing: Deconstructing Ageism
There Is No New Normal
Keynote Presentation: Donald Hall

As we emerge from COVID and the requirements we all endured for masking, distancing, and curtailed travel, we have heard regularly that we have now entered a post-COVID "new normal." That term begs the question, of course, of what "old normal" is being referred to and how precisely we have deviated from it. It further obscures the fact that the queer theorist Michael Warner, in The Trouble with Normal from a quarter-century ago, rejected the whole notion of "normality," arguing that as a term, it has been used primarily as a means to assert control by dominant powers - normalising their interests - rather than to capture a widely common or desirable way of being.

So, was there in the years immediately pre-COVID a static and definable "normal" that then evolved radically into a "new" state over just 24 months or so? To put it bluntly, "no." The U.S.-based Pew Research Center has joined others in addressing this topic directly, concluding that our supposed "new normal" is really only an intensification of trends already present well before the pandemic: worsening social inequality, deepening mistrust of authority, science, and fact, and a turn toward authoritarianism as populations reject diversity, inclusion, and demands for social justice. Yes, we may have seen an appreciable uptick in remote work and online delivery of education, but even those simply meant more isolation and less immediate interaction with those unlike ourselves, and therefore worsened all of the social threats just mentioned.

To proclaim a "new normal" is at best a form of wishful thinking that a definitive break has occurred with a past that is viewed most often with nostalgia but at other times with distaste or condescension. It absolves us from reckoning with long-standing injustice and our own culpability in entrenched patterns of violence against the disenfranchised. It allows us to see ourselves and our quotidian lives as having endured something cataclysmic, emerging then phoenix-like, changed irrevocably. If we are living in the "new," then we no longer have to reckon with the "old," including long-standing and continuing crimes against others' selfhoods. The concept of a "new normal," in effect, absolves us of responsibility.

Instead of wasting time by celebrating or reviling a "new normal," we should work instead to document the trends that the pandemic magnified and trace down the intensified threats to civil society and economic security that have arisen because of or in response to the pandemic. This does not hinge on the concept of anything radically "new," rather it posits an incrementalist model of deepening fears of difference and desperate reassertions of old ideologies—a toxic, continuing normalisation of intolerance and indifference. As U.S. politicians wage renewed war on transgender youth and what they deride as "critical race theory" and "woke" culture, the old norms seem very much alive and all too present.

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Digital Literacy and Digital Inclusion: Reading the Digital World
Keynote Presentation: David Mallows

In his presentation, Professor David Mallows reflects on the notion of literacy in our contemporary digital world. The talk begins by discussing digital literacy as an extension of ‘traditional’ or ‘pen and paper’ literacy, underlining its importance but also its potential to increase already existing inequalities.

Professor Mallows draws on the work of the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, in particular his concept of reading the world before reading the word, to suggest that acquiring digital literacy should be viewed as a potentially transformative act, and that becoming digitally literate is necessary in order for adults to interact with and impact on their surroundings.

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Old Age in the Spotlight: Towards an Anti-ageist Theatre in the Times of the ‘New Normal’
Keynote Presentation: Núria Casado-Gual

The disempowerment of older people and their stereotypification as extremely vulnerable or, even worse, expendable human beings, are probably among the most disturbing features of the global crisis experienced due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Especially in the Western world, characterised by highly individualistic, production-oriented and youth-obsessed societies, the need to re-construct intergenerational bonds and, in particular, the urgency to re-value old age as a rich stage of the life cycle, can be regarded as important consequences of the lessons learnt during the pandemic. As a collective artistic form with social impact, the theatre constitutes an inspiring cultural domain whereby these lessons can be addressed and even put into practice. Through a variety of genres and performance styles, plays and shows that revolve around the theme of ageing have the potential to both represent old age as a complex source of identity and to signify interdependence among different generations as a sign of progress and social justice.

Contemporary theatre (more significantly, the theatre written or produced around or in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic) has clearly started to give old age a prominent space both in dramaturgical and production-related terms, hence paving the way for a more inclusive dramaturgy in the times of ‘the new normal’. The increasing number of plays on ageing, which has been evident in the last theatre seasons in Catalonia as well as in the international scene, has noticeably given more visibility to old age on the stage from a variety of discursive and theatrical angles. However, neither the presence of older actors in a show or the inclusion of the theme of old age in a play necessarily entail the promotion of alternative narratives of ageing whereby ageist stereotypes can be undermined. As amply proved by the interdisciplinary field of ageing studies, our societies still need to generate (or, in the best cases, strengthen) an age-based form of literacy and activism, in the same way that we have learnt to detect and counteract other forms of inequality or injustice based on other signs of identity.

Drawing from ageing studies as the main conceptual framework whereby an age-centred perspective can be developed from the humanities, and specifically building on theoretical and artistic developments derived from the combination of theatre and age studies, this lecture offers an age-critical overview of some of the recent shows and plays that signal the ‘anti-ageist turn’ of contemporary theatre, both in the Catalan scene and at an international level. By observing their dramatic features and styles of performance, these theatrical texts will be categorised according to the conceptualizations of old age and narratives of ageing they favour. Likewise, the ambivalences detected in some of their approaches will be analysed in an attempt to contribute to an age-critical discourse for (and through) the arts. Resorting to insights gained through the practice of playwriting and theatre-making, the presentation will also reflect on the challenges and possibilities of growth involved in the exploration of old age as dramaturgical material and as source of theatrical creativity, especially if we are to imagine a theatre for all ages that can help transform ‘the new normal’ into a truly anti-ageist era.

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Contemporary Cultural Representations of Ageing: Deconstructing Ageism
Featured Panel Presentation: Raquel Medina, Inesa Shevchenko, Kateřina Valentová

In her work Declining to Decline (1997), Gullette argues that cultural and social conventions significantly shape the perception of the ageing body. Capitalist neoliberal hegemonic discourses play a role in constructing a negative view of ageing, associating visible signs of decay and decline with a sense of negativity that society seeks to conceal and eliminate. This societal context fosters the rise of various industries and practices like gyms, Viagra for sexual activity, tourism, leisure activities, cosmetics, and plastic surgery. These elements collectively support and promote both healthy ageing and the perception of old age as a space for consumerism.

By presenting older people through narratives that emphasise deterioration and by neglecting to represent their experiences in a positive light, culture has strengthened ageism. Ageism refers to a form of discrimination, prejudice, or stereotyping based on a person’s age, typically directed towards older individuals. It involves holding negative attitudes, beliefs, or assumptions about older people solely because of their age. Thus, a third approach to ageing, that of Linn Sandberg (2013), proposes the concept of “affirmative ageing” as a theoretical space to challenge ageism as the binary perspective of ageing as either decline or success. This approach acknowledges and embraces the material realities and unique characteristics of the older body. By embracing affirmative ageing, one can move beyond simplistic categorisations and explore a more nuanced and positive understanding of the ageing process.

This panel focuses on non-hegemonic contemporary cultural representations of ageing that deconstruct ageism from an intersectional approach and through different media. With the intention of contributing to critical discussions of representations of old age and gender on the stage, while at the same time filling in the considerable gap between studies of (demo)dystopia and ageing from a theatrical angle, Inesa Shevchenko focuses on two contemporary plays that feature the topic of ageing at the heart of their chaotic, catastrophic worlds. Raquel Medina discusses female desire and sexuality in old age within and against patriarchal discourses that socially and culturally construct old age in its intersection with sexuality and gender. The films La vida era eso (David Martín de los Santos 2020) and Destino bravío (Ainhoa Rodríguez 2021) show how older women and sexuality or desire are not mutually exclusive terms and can be experienced through the haptic aspects of sexuality. Katerina Valentova´s contribution focuses on representations of ageing in graphic novels which may all successfully contribute to avoiding cultural stereotypes related with ageing. These narratives have a high emotional impact on their readers, enhancing more positive representations of intergenerational relationships.

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Want Happiness? Become an Artist
Keynote Presentation: Daniel Lutz

We all know the stories (nay, warnings!) of the tortured artist, the struggling artist, the artist living constantly on the edge of collapse and ruin. So who in their right mind would suggest that the future of anyone’s well-being lies in becoming an artist…? In this colourful talk, Daniel Lutz explores how in this shifting world we inhabit – in this “new normal” – becoming an artist is increasingly less of a risqué choice and more of a sensible path to happiness.

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I Shall Be Brief: Spare Thoughts on Literature and Care
Keynote Presentation: Isabel Alonso-Breto

In this presentation I intend to briefly share a few spare thoughts on literature and the ethics of care. I should approach these two concepts, constructs, realities, worlds, and medicines, both individually and in connection with each other. On the way, I should also be sharing some poetry pieces. By myself. And/or by others… Briefly. Perhaps.

Read presenter's biography