Some thirty experts from ten countries attend a symposium on empathy in biographical works.
They will deal with topics such as teaching of empathy through literature and empathy and social identities -ethnicity, disability, gender...-, among others.
From October 15 to 17, some thirty experts will participate in a symposium at the University of Navarra on empathy in biographical works. The specialists come from academic centers in ten countries: Australia, Canada, USA, Spain, Finland, Holland, Italy, United Kingdom, Singapore and Taiwan.
The activity, entitled Life Writing as Empathy: A Symposium on Narrative Emotions'.is organized by the project 'Emotional culture and identity' of the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS), which is funded by Zurich Insurance.
The symposium has as goal analyze empathy in works of biographical character, in the framework of emotions and emotional cultures, and is posed as an interdisciplinary dialogue from a series of texts such as memoirs, diaries, letters, films and documentaries, and from online media.
Keynote speakers trained at Harvard and YaleThe symposium addresses among other topics the teaching of empathy through literature, empathy and social identities (ethnicity, disability, gender, age and class social), representations of emotions related to empathy, reader acceptance and empathy, report and empathy, and the ethics of empathy.
The keynote speakers are Suzanne KeenPh.D. from Harvard University and Dean and Professor of English Philology at Washington and Lee University (USA); Irene KacandesD., Ph.D., Harvard University and professor of comparative literature at Dartmouth College (USA); and Arthur FrankD. from Yale University and professor at department of Sociology at the University of Calgary (Canada).