Watch this follow-up conversation with Anindita about some new research results. She is working on dog-human interactions on streets.
Here a follow-up video with Bart Kolodziejczyk speaking about synthetic biology, gene drives and the need of regulations.
Robert Harris, Professor of Immunotherapy in Neurological Diseases at Karolinska Institutet sent us a short video with some interesting news. Have a watch.
Energy and climate campaigner for Re:Common, a non-profit, public campaign membership-based organization based in Rome, Italy.
What are the most environmentally impacting structures in the world right now? Who runs them? What can you do to stop them?
Elena Gerebizza, from Italian organization Re:Common, tells us about the activist movements organized around stopping some of the most environmentally damaging structures taking place at this very moment, and how power and financial monopolies can end up destroying the fragile ecosystems of small town communities across Europe.
With a focus on the social consequences of big companies taking their toll on local European economy, Elena remarks on the importance of sticking together through strategic organization in order to help and improve the lives of many others affected by the finance oriented, and often corrupted, decision making that we see in our countries, our governments, and our everyday life.
Individuals reaching out to one another to secure a sustainable future is the way forward to a society in which everyone’s interests are safe, and Elena tells us how we can achieve that through awareness and collaboration.
Elena Gerebizza: My name is Elena Gerebizza. I work for an Italian organization called Re:Common. I’m a researcher and campaigner.
Nerina Finetto: Thank you, Elena, for joining me. Could you tell me a little bit about Re:Common?
Elena: Re:Common is a collective based in Rome, in Italy, and we do public campaigning and investigation on megaprojects, in particular, mega infrastructures that receive public financing in different forms, from loans, from public financial institutions to guarantees, and we look into dodgy aspects related to mega infrastructure, including corruption and misuse of public funding in every different form, and we do it in solidarity with the communities who are on the frontline opposing megaprojects.
Nerina Finetto: One of the biggest projects you are involved in is the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline. Could you tell me more about it?
Elena: We’ve been working on it since 2012, 2013, so from the very early days. The Trans Adriatic Pipeline is a gas pipeline which Europe included in the list of so-called Projects of Common Interest, for the European Commission. Since then, the project received a massive support from the European Institutions, as well as from the Italian Government; this is the main reason why we started to look at it. The Trans Adriatic Pipeline is a section of a longer gas corridor, which is called the Southern Gas Corridor; it is a pipeline which starts in Azerbaijan and goes across six different countries, so Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, Greece, Albania and finally, Italy. It is about 3500km long, and as we see, it’s basically crossing the life of hundreds of communities with massive environmental and human rights implications.
Nerina Finetto: One of the aspects you have been researching on is the political one, right?
Elena: The Trans Adriatic Pipeline was portrayed from the very early days as a project that should help Europe to build an independence from Russia. So really, a project that should help the energy security of Europe; this is how the Commission was talking about it, and it should help diversification. In fact, we realized from the very beginning that the very strong political connotation that the project was given, in fact was probably the lead motivation for it, because we couldn’t find any economic and financial sustainably in the project, and we couldn’t also see how this energy diversification and energy security would actually materialize. In fact, through the different years of campaigning, we realized this is not coming only from Civic Societies organizations, but it’s coming from economic and financial analysts and experts in energy matters. We realized that the resources of Azerbaijan are much smaller than what the country declared, and finally last year, it came out that a part of the supply gas that would transit through the Southern Gas Corridor will actually come from Russia, so the point of spending about 45billion euros to build this massive infrastructure, portraying it as something that will help Europe to diversify, is a scam for European tax payers, at the end, and it’s also providing a massive political support to governments like Azerbaijan and Turkey, which, today, it’s clear that are authoritarian regimes.
So, we seek the incredibly problematic, from the political to those from an economic and financial point of view. Part of our campaigning was about exposing how much public resources were drained by such a project, which instead could have been used in many other different ways, even more now after the Paris agreement was signed and so the project is just nonsense from the climate point of view, and it’s really not matching with the commitments that Europe and the different governments involved in the construction have taken in Paris. We really don’t see how and why Europe is still so much supportive of this project.
Nerina Finetto: What are the stakeholders here? Who is building the pipeline and who is paying for it?
Elena: So, the main proponents of the gas pipeline are SOCAR, the National Oil and Gas Company of Azerbaijan, together with BP, British Petroleum, one of the main oil corporations. Then, there are smaller shareholders, or let’s say other shareholders, that came in a later stage, including Snam, the Italian gas distribution company, Enagas, Fluxys, and the Swiss company Axpo, who had a key role in the very early days of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline, because it was actually the company that designed the project before it was then connected to the rest of the Southern Gas Corridor.
Who’s going to pay for it? The project is being portrayed as a private sector project. However we have seen that, for instance, Albania, Greece and also Turkey had to sign host government agreements with the consortium that is building the pipeline – TANAP in Turkey and the Trans Adriatic Pipeline AG in Italy, Albania and Greece -, and in the host government agreement it clearly said that the governments are ready to give a public guarantee for the financing of the project. So that means that if the consortium is, for instance, getting some loans from private banks and from public financial institutions the hosting governments the hosting government will provide a public guarantee, and that is a mechanism that translates a debt from a private to private into a public one, so it means that if anything goes wrong, it’s going to be the citizens of Albania, Greece and Turkey who are going to pay.
The other element is that it was declared in a number of public occasions that the consortium is aiming to get about one third of the funding from public financial institutions; that means the European Investment Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, but also the World Bank or the Asian Development Bank, the Asian Investment Bank, all the variety of public financial intuitions. So one third of 45 billion is a huge lot of money and again, even the public part of the funding should come with a public guarantee from the government or from the commission. The rest of the money may come from equity or from loans from private banks, but again, also the private banks are looking for a coverage of risk, so at the end of the day, the majority of it will be covered by public money in different forms.
Nerina Finetto: And the consortium also received huge loans from the European Investment Bank, right?
Elena: Yeah, actually, the European Investment Bank provided the biggest loan ever in the history of the bank, so since it was set up as the financial institution of Europe, and also quite extraordinary is that it was given to a company registered in Switzerland, so outside the European Union, formally, which of course is interesting form the tax angle of the story. Why the consortium is registered in Switzerland? Also from the transparency point of view, because as we know, Switzerland is not in the black list of tax havens, formally, but it’s still a country where access to information concerning companies registered in Switzerland is quite limited. So, actually a 1.5billion loan was given to the Trans Adriatic Pipeline and now the loan by the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development is being discussed. The loan is 500million, but it will be combined with another 700million coming from several private banks, which, again, are matching with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in order to get the coverage of the risk connected to the loans.
It’s a massive amount of public money and the question mark is on how these banks will be actually able to the do the due diligence and to make so that the consortium will respect the environmental and social standards, but also the transparency and, eventually, the corruption angle is quite relevant considering, for instance, the massive scandal that was everywhere on the media last year, called the Azerbaijani Laundromat, so we know that the players involved are players of this kind, and we are really questioning if the European institutions are actually able to monitor how the money will be spent to avoid the human rights violations and environmental violations.
Nerina Finetto: Elena, could you please summarize shortly what this scandal is about?
Elena: So the Azerbaijani Laundromat was out on the media around October 2017. It was a leak, eventually, from one of the banks involved in a massive money laundering scheme where you had three different companies, or maybe even more, from Azerbaijan, who actually channeled across Europe about 2billion euros between 2012 and 2014; money which was then tracked by the authorities. There is an investigation, an internal investigation to Danske Bank, who was actually the bank involved in the money laundering factor; there is another investigation at the Council of Europe, and maybe the most important one is an anti-corruption and money laundering investigation by the public authorities in Italy. So the scheme was involving a number of politician, but also journalists and entrepreneurs in Europe who received huge amounts of money, mainly from Azerbaijan, and according to the public prosecutor in Italy, one of the beneficiaries was a former member of Parliament, Luca Volonté, who is still under trial in Milan, and the accusation for him is for international corruption and money laundering. Now the trial is still ongoing, the corruption accusation was appealed; we don’t know how it will conclude, but the key element is if people are asking themselves why this money was given.
Actually between 2012 and 2014, Azerbaijan was moving a massive political and communicational machine inside Europe to get recognition as a democratic country, which could become a key economic partner of Europe, mainly in the sector of energy. So there was a report on human rights violations in Azerbaijan, who was discussed at the Council of Europe, and Luca Volonté was the head of the European People’s Party at the time, so the accusation is that he was actually receiving the money in order to convince the entire political patty across Europe to vote against the report, and this is what actually happened. The report didn’t pass through the Council of Europe, and Azerbaijan was recognized as a democracy a couple of months after the Southern Gas Corridor became project of common interest for Europe. So, we think that there is a lo that should be looked at about how the decision was taken by European institutions, and we also think that it’s quite tricky for Europe actually choose a new authoritarian regime as a key energy partner after we have seen how the situation became very complex with Russia, so we don’t see a lot of a difference between Azerbaijan and Russia in this specific context.
Nerina Finetto: And it is also pretty interesting that Germany gave money to Turkey to build the pipeline in Turkey. How do you see it?
Elena: All of this was, of course, taking place at the same time as the war in Syria escalated. All the dynamic between Turkey and Russia and the EU, the refugee issue in Turkey, everything was happening at the same time and within that, the energy agreements and the Southern Gas Corridor as the biggest energy infrastructure that Europe is building at this moment, are overlapping with the other discussions, which is making it even more serious as a matter for European citizens, because we are actually bargaining human rights on one side, refugees and the new gas contracts, all on the same table.
Nerina Finetto: And from an energy point of view, does this pipeline make sense?
Elena: No, not in my opinion, and not in the opinion of many economic, financial and energy specialists. If you compare the cost of the pipeline and the quantity of gas that they’re claiming to transport, it doesn’t make any sense. It’s really too expensive. But at the end of the day, the real question is, do we need this gas? So the pipeline is expensive, it’s supporting authoritarian regimes, do we actually need the gas? The answer in ‘no, we don’t need ot’. We don’t need it because Europe has enough infrastructure in Europe already existing; we don’t need because the gas at the end of the day will very likely come from Russia, and we already have pipelines connecting Europe to Russia, and the energy path that Europe should follow for the future is rather a path where the consumption of gas should decrease. It has been decreasing in the last year, so if we really want to build an independence from controversial partners around Europe, then we should look into renewable sources and a completely different system where, eventually, communities may also be taking responsibility and control of the energy produced on their territories. So, it’s a completely different model what we should look at for the future if sustainability is the horizon that we are looking at, and also is the horizon is an horizon of democracy and participation of communities in the decision making. We don’t agree with those that portray gas as a bridge fuel for the future, simply because the time that we have to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels is quite limited. I mean, all the scientific studies are saying we are already consuming too much fossil fuels and we should rather reduce it and not build a new infrastructure.
If the Southern Gas Corridor is completed and is running at full capacity, we will all be consuming that gas for the next fifty years, and this is just completely unsustainable from a climate point of view, but also our main concern is rather on the democracy implications that this will have, as it will be basically supporting existing authoritarian regimes for the next fifty years, and this is, of course, very problematic, and if the pipeline starts to generate revenues, where will the money go at the end of the day? Will it go to the public coffers and will it be used also for the benefit of the people of Turkey, of Azerbaijan, and of the different countries involved, or will it go into the private pockets of the existing regimes and their entourage? This is a question that is not being addressed, and we think that the way that Europe is approaching it is not solid enough.
Nerina Finetto: And how about the environmental impact of the pipeline?
Elena: The pipeline you should imagine as not only a gas pipe underground, but you should imagine it as a corridor. So in Turkey, this is kilometers wide, and that means that not only a pipeline will be built, but we’re talking about 2,000km for something like 6 to 8km wide. It’s a huge section of the territory, so everyone who is living on that territory, its own interests and its own rights, are being put on a secondary level compared to the investment agreement that the government of Turkey signed. It’s very difficult, of course, to engage with communities who are opposing the pipeline in Turkey, and it’s very dangerous in Turkey today and in the last few years to be publicly against such a project, because the project is portrayed as a project of national interest, so it means being against the government.
The same thing is happening in Greece and in Albania; in Greece the pipeline is going across the most fertile area of northern Greece; farmers are on the frontline, in the region of Kavala and they are seeing the frontline today. So, since the construction started, they have been seen abuses and violations of their property by the companies, so they literally blocked the construction. There hasn’t been a proper assessment of their demands, neither from the government of Greece or from the European financial institutions involved, and we think that this really critical and, somehow, it’s a challenge to the European legislation on public participation and the environment, so the Orus Convention and every European law that should guarantee public participation are really at stake in this moment.
In Albania, the internal political situation is also very difficult. We talk about communities in the northernmost parts of the country which basically are about to lose everything. It’s farmers communities who live off farming and they may have some fruit trees and olive growths, and this is not for big business, it’s small land for basic sustainability of the family, so when this people are losing their land, you can compensate them for the actual value of the land, but the point is, what will those families survive from in the coming years? And this is not being addressed properly, we think.
If we arrive in Italy, the resistance is very strong. Since 2012, we have seen a popular opposition movement, really made of families, of mothers, of grandmothers, of youth and elderly, everyone together opposing the pipeline. The first thing is because of the environmental impacts, of course; we talk about an area of Italy which is having the most pristine beaches, and the sea is the main resource they have. All the economy is rooted on small scale tourism; it’s a community of farmers, they have olive growths and just basic agriculture, and for these communities, the pipeline is also representing an economic and industrial model, which is completely clashing from the economy they are living from today, and also from their idea of future, so it is really about the future, the future generations, and also protecting a healthy environment for them.
Beside the pipeline in Melendugno and actually in the middle of four different communities, the project is also about building gas pressurizing stations, which is like – you can imagine like a turbo gas power plant right in the middle of communities. It’s going to be polluting; the company can say whatever they want, but it’s really about burning gas right there, but also it will have a potential risk of explosion. We have seen, not long ago, a similar plant exploding in Austria. That one was in the middle of nowhere, luckily, so there were no humans hurt and no communities live next to it, but in Melendugno, the first houses are at less than 500m from the actual plant, so people are really afraid of their security on top of everything else, and this is just to give you the sense of why people are opposing the pipeline so fiercely. They are really putting themselves between the so called ‘construction site’, which is basically the land where they live, and the machines form the company.
So last year, we have seen a very strong resistance form the people, but also very strong repression the state, who sent hundreds of policemen and army on the spot to defend the interest of the company, and we have seen a massive democracy issue there, with local authorities taking the sides of the communities, and the state with the police taking the side of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline consortium.
Nerina Finetto: And the pipeline is going to be also underwater. Is this an issue?
Elena: The community of Melendugno, from the very early days, has set up a commission of experts, so they have screened rhe project from page one to page two thousand, and the way that the company’s portraying this undersea pipeline, from their point of view, is just impossible to do. They claim that there will be no damage on the beach, and that there will be no damage on the sea. They’re trying to do something really challenging in an area where the soil is very fragile; the coast is not made of hard rocks, it’s sand and a very fragile type of rock which is continually being eroded by the sea, so it’s a very peculiar area.
By the way, it’s also a protective area; there are several protective areas on land and in the sea. People simply don’t believe that there will be no damage and that they can continue to go on the beach just on top of the gas pipeline, which is what the company is saying. The community really informed itself through the years; there have been so many meetings with experts and with people really explaining the project to the residents, and now people feel empowered and they know simply that what the company is claiming they will do is just not going to help them, and so they are simply afraid that once the project starts, then they will have to live with a completely destroyed environment and with damages that will be irreversible forever, so it is really about the future of the community and protecting the environment as it is, but also deciding about the future. I mean, do we think that the community should have the right to decide about their future? They think they want to help that right, so they are reclaiming the right to decide about what should be done or what shouldn’t be done in their community. I think it’s really a strong cash of the democratic institutions of the state with the local authorities claiming the right to decide, and the central government basically giving everything in the hands of the company.
Nerina Finetto: And now we have also a new political situation in Italy, because the newly elected environmental minister is taking a new approach to the pipeline. Is it correct?
Elena: In Italy, we had elections in March. Finally. a new government is taking shape, and the first declaration of the environment minister is that the Trans Adriatic Pipeline is a pointless project, so it doesn’t make any sense for Italy. He’s looking into the environmental import assessment, and he claimed that they may reopen the process. So basically, the minister declared that something may have been wrong with the authorization of the pipeline; we, of course, now want to see the minister taking steps, so we want to see if the project is pointless, will the new government continue to support it or not? And this is a very strong political issue, so the communities and the popular movement have their demands, they are very clear, so we will see now in the coming weeks is the government will be consistent with the first declarations.
Nerina Finetto: What is your call to action?
Elena: We think that the Trans Adriatic Pipeline, and also the Southern Gas Corridor, is a project that everyone in Europe should be concerned about. It has to do with the future of Europe. We think that the communities in Italy, but also the communities in Turkey, or in Albania, in Greece, which have probably a political context that make it more difficult for them to respond, we’d like a popular resistance. These communities are in the frontline, but what they are defending is also our future, and I think that the support should be shown in a variety of ways. Support and solidarity from everyone across Europe. So one point is to understand who are all the different actors that are taking direct benefit form the construction of the pipeline, and to understand that what is being portrayed as our general interest, like energy security or independence from Russia, actually is just false. I mean, it’s really only political talks, but it is nothing to do with the reality that is behind this project.
I think if we all agree that we don’t need this gas, and if we all agree that the construction of the pipeline is hiding economic and financial interest that are rather personal and have nothing to do with the collective benefit of Europe, then we should just take a stand and decide on which side do we want to be.
Nerina Finetto: Where do you get you motivation from?
Elena: My motivation is really the motivation of someone who has the opportunity to be on the ground with the people who are on the frontline, so I do my investigation, but also I meet the people, I see the action impacts, I see the environmental and the social impacts, but also I talk with the people and I realize that what they want and the legislative framework that should protect them is actually somehow not working, like all the words about democracy and human rights, they just don’t match with what actually happenes on the ground.
When the interest is so high, the more we talk about projects of strategic interest for Europe, the more we realize that the voices or those on the ground are not being heard, and there is really a vacancy of democracy in Europe that has to do with that. So when the space is being restricted, when violence is being used, when the state is repressive towards the community and is not listening anymore, we think thet there is a problem, and when all of this is happening in the name of private interest, we realize that more and more it has to do with something that really is beyond what is the democratic structure of our country, and we think it should be exposed. So my motivation comes, I think, from the need of justice, and of seeing justice really being addressed, somehow.
I think we have to force the so called democratic institutions to take the stand of those that stand below, the normal people living everyday’s life, and I think also about questioning these new public-private combo that we see, where the public and private are basically all together, and so we see the State defending multinationals or big industrial and financial interests, but not in the name of the people. So, I think there is really the need to make clarity, and to take more and more concrete examples out there so that everyone can also have an informed opinion about what is going on, and whether this is really the place where we want to be. Are these are the rules that we think are the right rules, and is the State is still representing the interest of the communities when such things happen.
Nerina Finetto: What needs to be done?
Elena: I think that we need to be more and more responsible of our lives, and we need to take the responsibility of taking care of the place where we live and the people we live with. More and more we need to feel that we are part of a community, and that as a community we may be able to define what we want for our future. So it’s not the individual human being that decides, but it should be more and more the space of our community who decides and who is also able to take care of itself as the State is jut not able to do anymore. So in the places where people feel like they are forgotten by the state, I think that the challenge is to reorganize somehow and start to take the responsibility of taking care of each other, which includes the people, but also the environment, It includes also the type of economic activities that we think should take place in the place where we live if we want it to be sustainable in the longer future.
Nerina Finetto: What kind of society do you dream of?
Elena: I think this is the society that I dream of. It’s a society where people are able to take care of themselves and of each other, and where they feel that collaborating with each other is probably the best way to foresee a future. So I imagine a future where imagines are real communities of individuals that feel close one to the other and are able together to decide what they need and how to achieve it. I imagine that if we are able to be open and collaborative, we should be able to also redefine our future in a way that is sustainable for the planet and for ourselves.
Nerina Finetto: Do you have a dream, Elena?
Elena: A personal-? I think this is my dream, at the end. I mean, it’s a dream that I see. It’s not a fantasy, because I know people and I’m probably part of communities that are in the making, and I think that a lot of the resistance I’ve seen is also containing in themselves the seeds of the new ‘Other Worlds’, like the Latin-Americans like to call them. But our communities, by questioning an economic model, they also start to question how a society functions, and they are rediscovering a collective way of doing things, which is like aware of power as a big issue, and so they try to address it on one side, but they are also aware that being collaborative and able to do things together, including talking together to discuss and have different opinions, is a resource and not a problem. I think this is the way forward.
Nerina Finetto: Thank you so much for this conversation, Elena.
Elena: Thank you!
Nerina Finetto: And thank you for watching, thank you for listening, and thank you for sharing. Please feel free to reach out to me if you have any suggestion. Keep wondering, and see you next time again. Bye and ciao.
Energy and climate campaigner for Re:Common, a non-profit, public campaign membership-based organization based in Rome, Italy.
Souleymane Bachir Diagne received his academic training in France. An alumnus of the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, he took his Ph.D (Doctorat d’État) in philosophy at the Sorbonne (1988) where he also took his BA (1977). His field of research includes Boolean algebra of logic, history of philosophy, Islamic philosophy, African philosophy and literature.
He is the author of Boole, l’oiseau de nuit en plein jour (Paris: Belin, 1989) (a book on Boolean algebra), Islam and the Open Society: Fidelity and Movement in the Philosophy of Muhammad Iqbal (Dakar, Codesria, 2011), African Art as Philosophy: Senghor, Bergson, and the Idea of Negritude (Seagull Books, 2011), The Ink of the Scholars: Reflections on Philosophy in Africa (Dakar, Codesria, 2016), Open to Reason: Muslim Philosophers in Conversation with Western Tradition (New York, Columbia University Press, 2018).
His book, Bergson postcolonial: L’élan vital dans la pensée de Senghor et de Mohamed Iqbal (Paris: Editions du CNRS, 2011) is forthcoming in an English version to be published by Fordham University Press. That book was awarded the Dagnan-Bouveret prize by the French Academy of Moral and Political Sciences for 2011 and on that same year professor, Diagne received the Edouard Glissant Prize for his work.
Professor Diagne’s current teaching interests include history of early modern philosophy, philosophy, and Sufism in the Islamic world, African philosophy and literature, twentieth-century French philosophy.
What does it mean to be a philosopher in the modern day? Does philosophy still offer answers to todays’ most pressing issues, or does it belong to the questions of the past? What can philosophy teach us that we don’t already know?
Souleymane Bachir Diagne is a Senegalese modern-day philosopher that is here to answer these questions and more. With an extensive academic career that encompasses African literature, History of Philosophy and Francophone Studies across three continents, Souleyman offers a unique point of view on the history of Philosophy in today’s beliefs, actions and ideas, its influence across different cultures, and the decolonization of philosophical concepts.
A strong supporter of doing good in your own sphere before taking on the world, Souleymane believes that human progress goes beyond individual convictions, instead residing in the common forces that move us towards the greater, brighter goal of a shared human experience that pays no mind to religious, national or ethnic fragmentations.
Watch our interview to better understand today’s relationship between philosophy and religion, the importance of both in creating a better world for younger people, and how the ideas of the past have been revolutionized to provide a clearer reflection of today’s philosophical and spiritual needs.
Souleymane: My name is Souleymane. Souleymane Bachir Diagne. I’m a Senegalese philosopher. I’ve taught twenty years in Senegal, after finishing my higher education in France, and in 2002, I crossed the Atlantic again and went to the United States, where I taught Philosophy, first at Northwestern University in the suburbs of Chicago, and then now, I live in New York, where I teach Philosophy and Francophone studies at Columbia University.
Nerina: Thank you for your time and great to speak with you. How did you get into philosophy?
Souleymane: That’s a really good question, because there is some chance, always, in the choices we make. When I finished high school and when I first traveled out of Dakar, in my country Senegal, and went to France to study, I was hesitating between two different paths; one of them would have made me an engineer by now, because I was admitted in a school of Engineering named INSA – Intitut National des Sciences Apliquées -, which was in Lyon, and I also was admitted to go to what is known in the French system as classe préparatoire, these elite paths where students prepare for entrance into école normale supérieure, the system of Grandes Écoles, as it is known in France. The first choice would have meant becoming an engineer, the second choice would have meant becoming a philosopher, and I decided for Philosophy after a while. It took me a while to make that decision, and now I’m very happy I made that decision; that was really what my life was about, being passionate, having feeling this passion for Philosophy, reading texts that I loved, explaining them and writing somehow from them in doing research in the field I had chosen.
Nerina: You had to choose between two completely different paths. What is the relationship between science and philosophy, in your opinion?
Souleymane: What I do is, in fact, not separate them, so the reason why I do not ask myself what is the difference between the two is that I do not separate them in the first place.
Let me give you an example, a precise example of my own work. As I said, I started working in the field of logic, history of logic and mathematical logic, and the author I worked on, George Boole, the British logician and mathematician, who actually invented our binary system, the 0 and 1 that we use in the language of our computers, was an invention of Boole. Something that people do not know is that his project was philosophical in the first place; he wanted to make Aristotelian logic more efficient by using the language of Algebra, and in so doing, he created the scientific object that would be called the Algebra of Boole and that we are using in our computers. So this interpenetration, I would call it, this interaction between science and philosophy is very important, so this is why I believe that the Humanities and the so called ‘Exact Sciences’ should never be separated. After all, it is one human mind which needs, at once, scientific procedures and artistic and humanistic values, and these should be together.
Nerina: What does it mean, being a philosopher in the 21st century?
Souleymane: It’s complicated, what does it mean to be a philosopher? Well, let me answer that question by letting you know what my experience was, and I said I was always between science and philosophy, mathematics and philosophy. The way in which I reconcile those two passions that I had, was when I finished, when I was going to choose a topic for my dissertation in Philosophy to work in the field of Algebra, of Logic, so I wrote a dissertation and my first two books, the first two books that I published, were both in the field of algebra, of logic, so that’s one way of answering your question, to be a philosopher may mean to be a philosopher of science, a historian of science, which was what a did.
And then I went back home, I went back to Senegal, and of course I was going to teach philosophy. My goal, going back home, was to create in the Department of Philosophy in Dakar, a strong curriculum in History, Philosophy of Science, Sociology of Science, because that was my fundamental training, and I did that, I created that curriculum back home. But then, at the same time, you had all the debates going on, and that is what it means to be a philosopher; you cannot be a philosopher in the same way you are a natural scientist or a physicist, etc, etc; which means that you pay attention to what is going on. Your thinking is also one way of intervening; you intervene in the public square, in some respects, or at least something of the debates going on around you find an echo in your thinking. So I could not just decide that ‘Ok, I’m a specialist in philosophy of science, this is what I’m going to do’. I had to be part of the debates that were taking place at that time.
And so one aspect was the question of philosophy in Africa, what does it mean to philosophize in the African continent, to philosophize (indiscernible, 7:02) the problems in Africa. To give you an example, what does it mean to look at African art in its difference from European art, for example. So, those were the debates going on, and I started taking part. The 90’s had been years of transition towards democracy, and so the thinking was about African democracies, what does it mean to make these countries democratic, what kind of institutions were to be designed, so this was a very exciting time for someone to think philosophically about the problems facing Africa.
Another aspect was also the question of religion. I went back home in the early 1980’s, and this was the aftermath of the Iranian revolution, and political Islam as we know it now was very much on the scene, was very much on our screens and our newspapers and so and so forth, and Senegal is a Muslim country, so that was an aspect of the debate as well, what connection should we have now, where’s the intellectual and spiritual tradition of Islam, which is not known and of which philosophy is an important part. So I decided, also, in addition to my more technical teaching in philosophy of mathematics, to teach the history of philosophy in the Islam world, and to intervene in some respect on the debate surrounding Islam today. So, this is a very long answer, but that is for me what it means to be a philosopher. Again, not just chose a path, a specialty and work in that specialty narrowly defined, but being ready to go different ways, to change and to adapt, also, to the discussion about what is going on around you.
Nerina: Religion and philosophy. They are considered by many people be opposite ways to see life. How do you see it? Is there a contradiction?
Souleymane: Well, sure, one could say, defining things in these broad brushes, that on the one hand religion is really about faith, and even blind faith; you have to believe in something, you have to believe without evidence, you have to believe in things that you cannot see, that you cannot touch, that are not for your sensible grasping or even for your human understanding, on the one hand. And then you have philosophy, which is based on reason, rationalism, and proof and evidence. So it would be simple to just oppose the two and say that religion is one thing and philosophy is a very different thing, but now if you look at the history of religions themselves, you can see how, from within religion, there is a need to philosophize; that was the birth of Islamic philosophy, for example.
You cannot just decide that everything has been said once and for all by a revealed text; even the text you have to read it. So you can never be in the situation where you say ‘This ends philosophical questioning and I have the answers now’; you have to build your answers, you have to keep them open, you have to understand how open they are and how open they remain, because it is really, truly, your own human duty to examine. One important Muslim philosopher (indiscernible name, 11:28) has said ‘He who does not doubt, does not examine, and he who does not examine, doesn’t believe’, and this is probably the best single sentence to explain why philosophy is necessary to religion itself and how the connection between the two is really an internal relationship and not an external relationship between two very different things.
Nerina: You mentioned that, as a philosopher, you have to take part in the discussions that take place in the public sphere. Right now, it is religion in focus, and not always in a positive way. How do your books participate in the general discussion?
Souleymane: We live in times where, paradoxically, religion is so present in our lives. I mean, if we open our television sets, we see religion everywhere, and many terrible, violent, unbelievable things being done in the name of religion, and at the same time, we are so ignorant about religions in general, because years and years of so called secularism has made religion something that is not known anymore.
You know, even independently form the political situation that we are living in, and the security questions that religions and fanaticism, rather that religion, by the way, are posing, there’s an ignorance of religion. I mean, younger people are even incapable of reading works of art because they just don’t know who the people represented in art are, and most of the time these are religious characters, biblical characters that you find in paintings and so and so forth. But what it means, also, in particular for Islam, which is probably the religion nowadays associated with violence and everything. It is a terrible thing, and people need to be reminded that this religion was not born yesterday, and it is the religion of one billion and a half people, and it is a spiritual and an intellectual tradition.
So there is a need to make that tradition known, primarily for younger Muslims, for Muslims themselves, and this is what led me to the decision to teach also the tradition of philosophy in Islam, and this is the decision that led me from there to use my teaching for many years and make it a book, and I believe that that book, by precisely reminding people of what this intellectual and spiritual tradition that we call Islam, that we should be knowing as Islam is, this becomes de facto, a kind of intervention in the public square to, again, make Islam known and, primarily, known to Muslims themselves.
Nerina: And your books somehow change the narrative about the history of philosophy, right?
Souleymane: Absolutely. It is important for philosophy, for the discipline of philosophy in general, to sort of decolonize itself, as I would call it, because philosophy has been constructed as a uniquely European phenomenon, and this has happened very recently, actually. Traditionally, historically, philosophers in Greece or in Europe before the contemporary modern times never really thought of themselves as being the unique philosophers that humanity has ever seen; this is something that happened almost around the beginning of colonialism, that Europe defined itself has the heir of Greek philosophy and the continent of philosophy par excellence, and decided that philosophy was really the defining feature of Europe, so African philosophy could not exist; philosophy could not exist anywhere else outside Europe.
So this changed, because the history of philosophy is just not supporting such an idea if you look at who is the heir of Greeks. Many people have been the heir of the Greeks; Greek philosophy was appropriated by the Islamic world, so you have a tradition of philosophy in Islam that we do not know; this is something that I decided to teach, to let my own students know, because we were a department of philosophy in a Muslim country and we needed to know about that tradition as well, and I mean, human beings are naturally inclined towards philosophy, because human beings, by definition, know that they are mortal, they bury their dead, they look up to the sky, and they ask themselves about the destination of humanity, what it means to be human, what it is be born, what it means to die, and so and so forth. So philosophical thinking and philosophical wisdom exist everywhere, so we have to think about that and reconstruct the history of philosophy in such a way that it ceases to be this uniquely Western history of thought, and that is a very important aspect of my work as well.
Nerina: What is the most important lesson that your students have to learn?
Souleymane: You know, to just give you my experience, among the class that I teach in my university, Columbia, I have one class on history of philosophy in the Islamic world, where I introduce my students to classical Islamic philosophy, form 9th century to 13th century, and then also modern questions and so on. I also teach a class that I call African Literature in Philosophy, where I look at what is being written in Africa and what are the problems being debated by African intellectuals and philosophers, and I also teach, of course, general history of philosophy and philosophy of logic, as I’ve always done. And when my students have the feeling that they are more of what Islam is, or that they are more aware of Africa in terms of the intellectual production of the continent – Africa not just being a subject of conversation associated with diseases, problems, epidemics and so on so forth, but what are Africans thinking and writing now, what have they been thinking and also writing – it is not known that, for example, you have a long tradition of written edition in Africa; Africa is generally associated with orality, and people are now discovering all the manuscripts in Timbuktu, for example, that this is not true. And when they become aware of that, when they change their mind about what they thought, or what they thought they knew about the topics that I’m teaching, I think that I have done my job as an educator.
Nerina: What kind of society do you dream of?
Souleymane: Well, I dream of a society that would not be fragmented into what I call ethno-nationalisms, which is unfortunately what we have today. It is not just that there is a kind of stiffening of identities where people are fighting in the name of their religious identities or their national identities and so and so forth. It’s not just religion, but even in the field of politics we can see that. What I call ethno-nationalism is, as well, all these movements, extreme right movements, that we are calling populism. We should call them tribalism, because that is what it is, and my dream is the reconstruction of the philosophical and ethical idea of one humanity, which means hospitality.
Let’s look at the crisis of migrants that we have nowadays, refugees and migrants. They are met with what the Pope has called the globalization of indifference. The Pope is appalled and is always reacting against what he sees as indifference to human suffering, because we are so fragmented and thinking about ourselves and people who look like us, have the same religion, have the same skin color, and so and so forth. We are losing sight of the ethical general idea of humanity, in general. And that is the foundation for common life, that is the foundation for building together our Earth, that is the foundation of having the sense that we are one, our Earth is one, and the we should come together and take care of it.
This was, for example, something we saw during the Paris agreement on our environment. This was a wonderful metaphor for the idea of humanity being one, and looking in the same direction and taking care of our common home, which is our Earth. Unfortunately, we have seen the forces of fragmentation come again, when the United States, for example, just decided that they are going to, you know, come out of this common agreement and so and so forth. So that is, somehow, what I think is important, and will be the ultimate goal of all the different aspects of my work, working really to what’s, you know, this general idea, this universal idea of one humanity.
Nerina: How can we reconstruct our notion of humanity?
Souleymane: This is long-term thinking. In the short term, it has to be played on the political ground; we have to resist this type of populism. I believe that we have to fight for that ideal of a world of social justice, where you do not just have a global capitalism indifferent to human suffering and to that kind of fragmentation that I have described.
Nerina: Do you have a dream?
Souleymane: Well, I’ve had for a long time the dream of, you know, all young people have that dream, of changing the world, and I was thinking of doing science, I was thinking of having the discovery that would change things on Earth and things like that. Growing up, you learn to be much more humble than that, and you just ask yourself ‘Ok, am I, right now, touching the lives of people and changing things in my own sphere of influence?’, because, if you are in my position, obviously you have some influence on certain number of people. So my dream is to be able at one point to ask myself honestly that question and be able to answer that yes, I did that, and I realized that wish of making difference in the lives of a certain number of younger people.
Nerina: What is life about?
Souleymane: For me, life is about love; in other words, the force of life. I believe in the force of life. If I have to define myself in terms of my philosophy, I would say that I am very much a vitalist, in the sense that I believe in the force of life, and I think that the force of life is the same as the force of love. That this world has been created out of love as an open ended, always emerging cosmology; that this world is something that human beings have to invent an reinvent all the time, and that the energy they use, the force they use for that, which is the force of life, is the same as the force of love. So, for me, that is the sort of cosmic significance of love, it is also the personal significance of love. It is because the world itself is a creation of love, and that its movement forward is the movement of love, that our individual lives are always about love.
Nerina: Thank you so much for this conversation, and thank you for watching, thank you for listening and thank you for sharing. Please feel free to reach out to me if you have any suggestion. Keep wondering, and see you next time again. Bye and ciao.
Souleymane Bachir Diagne received his academic training in France. An alumnus of the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, he took his Ph.D (Doctorat d’État) in philosophy at the Sorbonne (1988) where he also took his BA (1977). His field of research includes Boolean algebra of logic, history of philosophy, Islamic philosophy, African philosophy and literature.
He is the author of Boole, l’oiseau de nuit en plein jour (Paris: Belin, 1989) (a book on Boolean algebra), Islam and the Open Society: Fidelity and Movement in the Philosophy of Muhammad Iqbal (Dakar, Codesria, 2011), African Art as Philosophy: Senghor, Bergson, and the Idea of Negritude (Seagull Books, 2011), The Ink of the Scholars: Reflections on Philosophy in Africa (Dakar, Codesria, 2016), Open to Reason: Muslim Philosophers in Conversation with Western Tradition (New York, Columbia University Press, 2018).
His book, Bergson postcolonial: L’élan vital dans la pensée de Senghor et de Mohamed Iqbal (Paris: Editions du CNRS, 2011) is forthcoming in an English version to be published by Fordham University Press. That book was awarded the Dagnan-Bouveret prize by the French Academy of Moral and Political Sciences for 2011 and on that same year professor, Diagne received the Edouard Glissant Prize for his work.
Professor Diagne’s current teaching interests include history of early modern philosophy, philosophy, and Sufism in the Islamic world, African philosophy and literature, twentieth-century French philosophy.
Rector of UFMG, placed in the southeast of Brazil, the most industrialized region of the country. UFMG is a free-of-charge public educational institution, in the oldest university in the state of Minas Gerais.
“To be a feminist means to have a position in which you believe that you are able to do whatever you want to do without having to tell people that you have the right to”. So speaks Sandra Goulart Almeida, Brazilian professor and president of the Federal University of Minas Gerais, who devotes her work to the research of feminist literature, its history and its parallels in today’s world.
Literature has always been a reflection of our society, so it’s only appropriate that female writers get a long denied focus by intellectuals such as Sandra to better understand matters of cultural identity regarding the role of the woman all over the world, while also zeroing in on the ways that language builds us as members of one great community.
Listen to Sandra shed light on female authors who discuss the identity of women throughout different cultures, as well as how these identities and cultures must be approached and respected through external mediums to preserve and expose its ways of life and thought.
Sandra: I’m Sandra Goulart Almeida, I’m a professor at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, in Brazil. I’m also currently the president of the university.
Nerina Finetto: Thank you, Sandra, for joining me. What are the topics you are interested in?
Sandra: I like to work with comparative literature. I like to see what women are writing about; so mostly I work with contemporary women writers, and I like to see what they are writing from different parts of the world. So that’s what I’m passionate about. So for that reason, I’m also interested in feminist criticism, and also in the notion of cultural translation, since I work with literatures in English, and literatures in Portuguese. I think these are fields that are very exciting for us today; it’s a good time for us to be discussing those issues. There are, I think, in the history of literary studies, it has never been so many women writing.
Sandra: So I’m interested in researching about what women are writing at the moment, what are they interested in.
Nerina Finetto: What are women writing about?
Sandra: That’s an interesting focus. They’re writing about just everything right now. There was a moment in which we could just say that women were writing about their experience as women, you know? They’re writing about taking care of children, about other relations with women, what it is like to live in the private sphere. But now it’s a good, a very interesting time for us, because they’re writing about everything. What I’m mostly interested in, since I work with comparative literature, is how they talk about the notion of space. Especially because I work with women who write in English, but they live, for example, in other countries. So they are part of what is known as contemporary diasporas. So I am interested in that as well, what these women are writing about.
Nerina Finetto: And what are these women writing about?
Sandra: I just published a book on space, women writers and space, the notion of space, diaspora, migration. So I’m doing some research, also, on two aspects of what women writers are talking about. First one is the notion of affect, that a lot of women writers are choosing some affects of emotions to talk about the present moment. But most of them are angered, we have a lot of notion of anger, fear, you have that as well, so I’ve been working with that. And now I’m starting a research on the notion of post-human feminism, that is, women writers, how they’re also writing from others’ perspective. In the effect that believing there’s not a centrality of the human anymore. That are other things that we have to concede when we are discussing our contemporary world.
Nerina Finetto: What kind of things?
Sandra: Some women, I can give an example, Margaret Atwood was a Canadian writer, who’d been writing a lot about that, about how the future is going to be a society in which humans are going to share either physical or psychological, or even the space without animals, but also with machines as well. So the fact of that, we live in a nature that there is no way that we can have the centrality of men, as we understood that, for example in the 19th century or in the previous century, some questioning, showing how women are writing about those topics as well.
Nerina Finetto: Do women write in a different way than men?
Sandra: You could say that, especially in the past we could say that the women, they tend to have a different way of writing, but I think this question doesn’t take us anywhere. The question of sexual difference, I believe that it does more harm than good, because then we start establishing “rules” for how women should write and how men should write. And I think that’s not what I am interested in. I think women are writing regardless of what we say they are writing about. There are a lot of women who are writing about the experience of migrants, as refugees or people who live in transit. It’s something that’s more recent for women to write about; it’s nothing about the private sphere, they’re writing about what it is like to be out there, so I am interested in that. I think asking whether they like different from men, limits the scope of what they can do.
Nerina Finetto: This means that actually we do not need these categories, ‘men’ and ‘women’ writers.
Sandra: No. Yeah.
Nerina Finetto: But at the same time, you tell me that you are interested in female literature. You do not say “I am interested in literature”. Why?
Sandra: For historical reasons. Traditionally, there are more men writers, it has always been easier for men to publish. Being a writer was something that men were, not women in the 18th century. Women started really publishing extensively in the 19th century, over all. So the area of literature, of writing, is traditionally dominated by men, so I think there are two different things here; one, it’s the historical conditioning of women as writers. Either they were silenced for many years, or they were published and nobody knew about them, or because they were not writing because the social and political and economic conditions were not favorable for them. And now we are in a very good time in history, and we could say that the conditions are better for women to write, and they are writing. So I am interested in what they have to say, there is still some kind of prejudice against women as writers, or in all professions in general, so I think it’s a political position, you know, giving visibility to what they write, how they write, what they discuss. Many of them talk about their conditions as women, many of them discuss issues related to the body, you know. So there are some things each day they talk about, and that you don’t usually find in writings by men.
Sandra: But again, it does not mean that they have to write about this. My position as a literary critic is not to set up the standards for them to write according to those standards, but rather to see what they are doing, to examine what is behind the kind of narrative that they are constructing.
Nerina Finetto: Is there a writer who you admire and would like people to know more about? And why?
Sandra: There are many writers I am interested in, as I said I work with literatures in English, and also in the context of Brazil and literature. There is a Nigerian writer who’s been very well-known, and I like her work because of the political position that she stands for. Her name is Chimamanda Adichie. Not only does she write novels, short stories, but also she gives lectures and then they turn into essays. You can find them in the internet. For example, she has a very interesting lecture that she gave about the danger of a single story, so this is available for whoever wants to listen to in the internet. And she also gave another lecture about We Should All be Feminists, that’s the title. And that was turned into a booklet about showing her belief that men and women should all be feminists, so there is a position that we have to take in relation to society. And recently she has published another one about how to raise a daughter as a feminist. So I like the fact that she is a writer; she writes fiction, very very interesting fiction, she talks about several important issues for women, but also for humankind in general. But she also has a theoretical thinking about her position as a writer. And I like that. I think it’s inspiring, the kind of work that she’s doing.
Chimamanda: So that to create a single story. Show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become. It is impossible to talk about the single story without talking about power. There’s a word, an [inaudible 00:08:45] word, that I think about whenever I think about the past structures of the world. And it is “nkali”; it’s a noun that loosely translates to ‘to be greater than another’. Like economic and political worlds, stories too are defined by the principle of nkali. How they are told, who tells them, when they are told, how many stories are told, are really dependent on power. Power is the ability, not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person.
Nerina Finetto: I really like The Danger of a Single Story and I really like her message and theoretical position. And probably the richness that we can have through different narratives is also one of your main topics, right?
Sandra: So there’s something that I am interested in, these women writers are telling a different story. A story that we have never heard before. There is also a Brazilian writer whom I like very much, who’s called Conceição Evaristo. She’s a black writer, and she talks about her experience, you know. She comes from a very poor family, in a country that has a tradition of racism, so she talks about her experience as a black woman in Brazil, and she talks about several other narratives that we usually do not encounter on an everyday basis on the literatures of the country. You come across that occasionally, but not that often. So I think this is a very important issue, to have these writers tell stories that we’re usually not familiar with, that we have not heard before. For example, Adichie, she tells this story of the Biafran War, which was a tragedy in terms of history. She tells that from her perspective, from the perspective of women, from the perspective of a poor boy, in the story. So she gives us the possibility of looking through literature, looking at histories. She and Evaristo also do that.
Sandra: I remember that story from when I was a child, I remember the pictures of the children in Biafra dying because of hunger, but I didn’t know the context. So I just read her novel, and it’s very good. I do recommend Half of a Yellow Sun.
Nerina Finetto: I mentioned you are not only writing and teaching about women’s literature, but you are also a role model for young women because of your position at the university. How do you see it?
Sandra: I think more than being a woman in the university, I think there’s still many women who teach at my university, but they’re not as many women who address the issue of women writers, of gender studies, or feminist criticism, they’re not as many. So, of course, I’ve been doing that for the past 20 years. And I usually say that my role is to teach the younger generation, you know? And I’ve noticed a change. I think the women nowadays are more interested in the subjects. Whenever I teach a course, I have many people wanting to take a course with me because they are interested in what I have to say regarding gender studies, about literature written by women, about feminist literary criticism. So I think it’s my role; my position as a professor, as a teacher, it’s really to teach the younger generation, who in turn will teach younger generations too. So I usually tell them “we have a task, a role to play in teaching them, even in the most basic level.” For example, to watch a film, and be able to criticize the way that women are portrayed in the films, to see an advertisement and see how sexist or how racist that advertisement is, beyond the study of literature. I think it’s an everyday practice.
Nerina Finetto: What is the lesson that your students have to learn, if there is such a thing as one lesson?
Sandra: To be critical. They have to be critical. They should never take anything for granted, no discourse for granted, no news for granted, no narrative for granted. They do have to be critical about what they are reading; to be able to stand and say “What is behind this? What is discussed here?”. So I usually try to tell them that they do have to be critical, they have to have a critical position regarding either the object of study, or anything that they’re reading or they’re watching.
Nerina Finetto: And what is the most important lesson that you have learned from your research?
Sandra: Maybe that’s exactly the same lesson that I have learned. That there are many stories being told, that we have to know those stories to start with, we have to know about what other women are writing about, and we do have to be critical about what we read in general. Not only about what women are writing, but what we read on an everyday basis.
Nerina Finetto: Was there a turning point in your life that determined who you are now?
Sandra: I think I’ve always been like that, I think I’ve always been interested in the topic, maybe because of the way that I was raised. I had a very interesting grandmother. I am of Lebanese descend, so she had a very difficult life in the sense that she was not allowed to study, she was not allowed to do what she wanted to do as a woman. She was a musician, but she wasn’t at the time, she had to get married, to have children, so she didn’t… so she gave me a lot of support, because I always was very much interested in doing research. I was always a feminist at heart.
Nerina Finetto: What does it mean to be a feminist?
Sandra: It means to have a position in which you believe that you are able to do whatever you want to do without having to tell people that you have the right to. You just do it, you can do whatever or as much as men do, so there should be no limitations. I do believe in equal rights for men and women.
Nerina Finetto: What does it mean to you, being a professor?
Sandra: This is what I like best about the kind of work that I do. As I said I am an administrator, but I like to be a professor, I like to publish, I like to think. I like to be able to teach my students a lot of the things that I research on. I think it’s a way for you to pass on not only your knowledge, but it’s a way for you to contribute to a better society. I do believe in that.
Sandra: As I said, if my students leave my classroom and they learn to be better readers, more critical about what happens in the world, I’m happy with what I did with my job. That’s what I like best.
Nerina Finetto: What is the role of the humanities, in your opinion?
Sandra: I think all over the world, there is being the evaluation of the humanities. I think we can’t deny that. I think the way that the world has evolved, what has been valued, is usually the exact science, administration, not very much the humanities, which of course I think it’s a mistake. I think the humanities are essential for our world as it is nowadays. Not only because it provides us with the tools to be more critical about what goes on in all other disciplines, but also because it adds to whatever you are doing in the other fields. So I’m very much a believer in the power of interdisciplinary, to your transdisciplinary, that’s what people have been talking about. A world that is not limited to a discipline specifically.
Sandra: So because we have moved towards a society that wants results more than anything else, the humanities have been devalued as a profession. Which I think is horrible for the world, and I think, on the contrary, what has to be done, is to have more dialogue among the disciplines, so that the humanities are able to do what it does best, which is to open the grounds for other ways of thinking, to be critical, I think it teaches us how to be critical, it teaches us how to deal with the other. That’s what we have to do all the time, especially in the world we live in.
Nerina Finetto: To deal with others and to listen to others. One of your main interests is also translation, right?
Sandra: The ideal situation would be for us to know other languages, but since we do not know other languages, the means for us to listen to the other that we would not otherwise listen to, is by means of translation. But that means that the translator has a very important role, the role of mediator. So the translator has to mediate not only the context, but also he or she has to have an ethical responsibility towards the subject whose language this person is translating. So it has to do with cultural diversity. I think in terms of culture, it’s not only translation from language to language. It’s a political positioning as well. Since we cannot learn all the languages of the world, we do need translation so that others can speak through us, and also translators. So I’m interested in that. So I’m working with the Swiss theory of translation as a means to listen to the other.
Nerina Finetto: What connection does language have with identity?
Sandra: It has everything to do. You are built, you’re constructed through language. The way that you think has to do with the language that you speak. What I’m trying to discuss here is that especially those so-called minority languages, if they’re not preserved, if they’re not translated, if there’s no dialogue with the other language, they’re going to end up simply disappearing, you know? So that’s what I’m talking … the important role of the translator as a mediator. Translators are kind of mediators between two worlds. But this translator is a translator who, especially when you translate from, for example, an indigenous language in Brazil, they need to be preserved, but they also need to be translated, if there’s going to be some kind of understanding between the peoples.
Sandra: But for you translate, you have to show respect for that language. Because that language is part of that, an identity of a subject, but it’s also a cultural identity of a people. So it’s important for you to show respect, to show understanding, towards that people.
Nerina Finetto: What kind of society do you dream of?
Sandra: An equal society. We live, especially in Brazil, it’s a very unequal society. Few people have a lot of money, and a lot of people don’t have enough. And I dream of living in a society that is more just, more equal in all aspects, [inaudible 00:20:16] gender equality is very important that people … I dream of a society in which people have access to education and to health. And I try to work towards that aim, because I do believe, and I think education has a major role, and I think universities play a major role in countries like Brazil, in which not many young adults are able to get into the universities, so our contribution is to try and put as many students as possible into the university, so that it reaches a way of social mobility as well. It’s a means of inclusion; it’s a way to give them access to things that otherwise they would not have access to. So I think it’s a long battle. It’s not easy, but that’s what I dream of. When we’re a just, equal, fair, inclusive society.
Nerina Finetto: With all the challenges that we are facing, do you think that we should keep speaking about feminism?
Sandra: It is essential to continue speaking about feminism. It’s essential to do that. I think it’s the way. Feminism has come a long way. It fought many battles, and I think it’s always going to be essential to talk about that. When you still have a lot of violence against women, when women are not allowed to have the same jobs that men do, or the same salary as men do, when women are forced to follow some kind of dress code, because of impositions of a patriarchal society; when all of these are still happening, it becomes even more relevant to talk about feminism. Because it’s about equal rights, about women doing whatever they want to do, having no limitations in terms of what society tells them what they have to do, what they don’t have to do.
Nerina Finetto: It is still pretty complicated for women to combine children, a family, with a career, even your research. How do you see it?
Sandra: If they want to be mothers, they should be mothers. If they want to have kids, they should have kids. They should do whatever they want to do. We don’t tell men what they should do and what they should not do. Nobody ever told them. Maybe they say “we should not cry, because men don’t cry”, maybe like that, but they’re not … if they want to do something, they should be able to do that as well. So I think women can be whatever they want to do. If they want to be mothers, they should be that, if they don’t want to be, they shouldn’t be forced to be mothers, either.
Sandra: I’m not a mother. I don’t have children, but my whole life people ask me “aren’t you going to have children?” What is behind the question is “oh, poor thing, she’s not a mother, oh poor thing”. I don’t feel like that, so it’s nobody’s business. It’s up to me. Because I’m a woman, it doesn’t mean that I have to have children, okay? But if somebody wants to have children, I think they should have. But of course, having children is, the way our society’s structured, is a burden for women most of the time. Not always but most of the time. Why? Because once you have children, it’s difficult for you to have work, to go out and get a good job, you’re responsible for the house. Some women like it, but most of them don’t like it, they want to go out and to do other things, they don’t want to stay home taking care of kids and taking care of the house, but if they do want, and they are happy with that, I have nothing against it. They are not “less” women because of that.
Sandra: So then that’s why politics, based on women rights, is also important. We have to give the women the economic conditions to do that if they want to be mothers. Then we have, what, day care for women, they should have maternity leave so that they can take care of their children then come back to work, they have to be protected by law, because if it’s up to society, they’re not going to be protected.
Nerina Finetto: What was the most difficult day, and what was the most beautiful one?
Sandra: The most difficult day? Possibly one day when I had to face sexism. When I was disregarded for being a woman, when my ideas were not considered, not because somebody doesn’t like my ideas, but because I am a woman, and because of that, my ideas are not valued as a man’s idea. This was a sad moment.
Sandra: And a happy moment was recently, actually, when a student of mine took a course with me, and sent me a message. I think those moments, I think sometimes it happens … it doesn’t happen every day, but it happens once a year, somebody sends you a message saying that you made a difference in her life or in his life; I think this is a very good day. That your teaching, the way that you work, what you did in your job, was important enough for somebody to feel that “oh, my life is changed. It changed the path that I was going towards”.
Nerina Finetto: Thank you, Sandra, for this conversation.
Sandra: Thank you. Thank you, it’s a pleasure.
Nerina Finetto: And thank you for watching, thank you for listening, thank you for sharing. And feel free to reach out to me if you have any suggestions. Keep wondering, and see you soon again. Bye and Ciao.
Rector of UFMG, placed in the southeast of Brazil, the most industrialized region of the country. UFMG is a free-of-charge public educational institution, in the oldest university in the state of Minas Gerais.
Q: Hello! Can you introduce yourself?
A: I am Ayda Badri, a PhD student in LSAMA: Laboratory of Atomic and Molecular Spectroscopy, in the Faculty of Science of Tunis. I am in my 3rd year.
Q: What’s the topic of your research?
A: I am interested in the CO2-CO molecular complex. I study shocks between these molecules. The CO2 molecule has been detected around us in the atmosphere, in the interstellar medium, etc… In the LSAMA laboratory, people study two kinds of molecules: big ones, and small ones. Big molecules are what researchers in medicine and biology are interested in. One of them is the DNA. It is a complex and big molecule. My team is interested in the small molecules that exist in the atmosphere, or the interstellar medium. Their presence influence many fields, such us industry, climatology, pollution, etc…
There are molecules that are more likely to collide with this molecule. So, first, we study the collision rate for many molecules, and we pick up the one that is most likely to collide with it.
I am also interested in the N2O-CO molecular complex, recently detected. It has been detected in the atmosphere.
Our work is between theory and simulation. We use numerical software to perform complex calculations, that finally give us information about these molecular complexes, and that will be useful to researchers in physics, astrophysics, biology, medicine, etc… It needs strong calculators, which are not easy to get!
Q: What are the most important questions you want to answer through your research?
A: We are trying to provide information about these molecules for the physicists, biologists, chemists, pharmacists, etc… We provide a theoretical study that, when combined with experimental studies, will be useful to better understand the world, make new medicine, purify the atmosphere, improve agricultural activities, nutrition, cosmetics, or any beneficent application.
This study contains theoretical information about the stability of the molecule, the properties of collisions with the most abundant molecules in the atmosphere – or the Universe more generally- (such as di-hydrogen (H2) and Helium (H)), or the human body, etc… Then comes the experimental study, which will rely on our theoretical study, which allows them to narrow the possibilities and focus on the most interesting areas to discover.
Q: What are the challenges you are facing in your PhD?
A: The human bonds are very important in a research work, especially collaborative work. When people work together, they make huge steps, with fewer mistakes. A single person cannot do this big path alone. It is a challenge to face every day, to keep a team working together on a very big project. Human relationships are complex. So I think this is a big challenge.
The project we are working on is not the easiest. We can make mistakes that cost much time and money. So we have to be very careful. But the project is motivating, so we go on!
Another challenge is the means. We have a limited budget, as many other laboratories, and we are many to study on a single calculator. It makes things more difficult, but it only gives us more will and strength to make even bigger things.
Another challenge is health. I am having health problems but I keep struggling. They only push me forward.
Q: Why are you doing this?
A: First, I was not interested in this field. I was interested in nuclear physics; this is what I did in my master’s project. But, there was too much math and analytical calculations in it, so I chose to go back to “real” physics! I wanted to make something more directly useful to humanity. Right now, I am studying these molecules in the atmosphere only. But I intend to move to biological applications as soon as I finish my actual research. I like this.
Every study has an influence, in one way or another. But I need to do something that brings improvement to the world, right now! It has incredible applications. One colleague is working on cocaine. Another one is working on anesthetic substances. It is really interesting. Big molecules are the subject of interest here. One day, I will hopefully move from small to big molecules.
Q: What is your dream?
A: We are only theorists in LSAMA. I hope that one day we will have an experimental team with us to collaborate and work together about cancer, for example… My dream is to find a cure to some cancer, or any illness. I am confident that we will.
Q: What are the topics that the FST (university) is interested in?
A: There are many fields in our university: mathematics, chemistry, biology, computer science and physics. As far as I know, it invests most of the money in energetics (photo-voltaic panels for example).
Q: Tell us more about your difficulties/activities?
A: I am a member in an association for researchers. We try to find solutions to their problems, either financial or scientific problems (like copyrights, organizing conferences, etc.). Another problem that researchers face is the time problem! Many students have lost a lot of time and effort working on something that, right before they publish their results, another team, somewhere in the world, publishes it before them. It is due to the limited means they have. Some of them are deprived from the rights and privileges of being researchers.
Q: Is there a book, a person, a situation that inspired you?
A: When I was in Poland, I was provoked by someone who told me that Arabs are those who invented the algorithm. They challenged me to make a program. I took it as a challenge. It motivated me. I spent two days working on this program. I did not even sleep. With the help of someone else, we both could make it much sooner than he thought. It really gave me energy.
Otherwise, my dad is my first inspiration and source of motivation. He was brilliant as a student. He is an accountant. He wanted to continue his studies, but he had to stop for many reasons. So, I want to continue his own path. So I have double motivation: mine and his! He is always interested in my studies. We always discuss about my research.
Q: What kind of society do you dream of?
A: Justice! We miss justice in this world. I also dream of a society where people help each other without counting. Or, at least, a society where people don’t make obstacles to others, because of envy and jealousy. There’s room for everyone. It doesn’t really matter who arrives first. What matters is the journey itself.
I also dream of a society that gives the opportunity to intelligent people to study if they have any kinds of problems.
Q: Do you have some fears?
A: I fear that one day I will be too busy for my research. I mean my familiar and social duties. I know they are my number one priority but, I still want to do my research at the same time, without sacrificing this or that. I want research to be my only job.
Q: Do you want to add anything, or give a message to people?
A: Research is passion! It gives me the strength and energy to face all the problems I face. I want to reach my goal of working as a researcher in the medical field, and continue on this path!
Thank you, Ayda! Good luck!
“I chose to interview Ayda Badri because I know she is an awesome person full of energy and hope, with a sharp sense of justice and loyalty. I think her story can inspire many of us, including me. Her studies are also very interesting, and meet in a certain way with my field of studies, which is astrophysics. But their applications are much larger than just physics.”
“I chose to interview Ayda Badri because I know she is an awesome person full of energy and hope, with a sharp sense of justice and loyalty. I think her story can inspire many of us, including me. Her studies are also very interesting, and meet in a certain way with my field of studies, which is astrophysics. But their applications are much larger than just physics.”
My name is Salma Baklouti. I am a PhD student of astrophysics. I decided to be a Traces.Dreams ambassador because I believe that dreams can come true, and that when there is a will there is a way. I also believe that life is rich, and it needs passionate people to spread its beauty and to contribute positively to the world.
I am going to share my story with you. It all started when I was very young and my father offered me an encyclopedia for children. The first chapter was about astronomy. It captured all my attention; I felt a great curiosity about that immense and beautiful world we barely know.
I started to think seriously about studying astronomy when I was in middle school. In my country, astronomy was not, and still is not, a separate specialty. I asked everybody who would possibly know the way to the stars. The only thing I knew was that I had to choose science and mathematics in high school, which I did. Then, I made engineering studies in meteorology; I found it very interesting, but I was still determined to study astronomy and astrophysics. Astronomy clubs were not enough. I wanted to understand the physics.
My mother promised to support me financially, because she believed in my dream. I started applying and I was accepted in the Paris Observatory. I used to visit their website, dreaming about joining them one day that I never would have thought would come.
I studied there for two years, and I majored in Astronomy and Astrophysics. Studies were hard, but my passion pushed me to go on and never give up. After these two years, I returned to my country and continued my way to the stars. I am now in my 5th and final year of PhD studies.
I dream that one day there will be an observatory in the Tunisian desert, with specialized college courses and degrees in astronomy and astrophysics. Some would say that the priorities of the country are more basic, but I do believe that every piece of land on this planet has its own richness and treasures. If we help each other, I am sure that this dream will come true, and will be a good step forward for my country.
The title of my research is “Effects of Non-Linear Processes of the Magneto-Gravity-Inertial Waves”. In short, we are interested in plasmas, which mean ionized gas, as a state of matter. It is estimated that 98% of the matter in the Universe is in the plasma state. So, the more we know about plasmas, the better we understand phenomena in the Universe. But there are too many physical phenomena that happen in plasmas. Specifically, we are interested in waves, produced by a magnetic field, a rotation of the plasma having a density gradient. These conditions are frequent in many astrophysical systems such as stars’ atmospheres (the Solar Corona), accretion disks (around stars, black holes…), etc. It is likely to explain, for example, the planets’ formation, or why the Solar Corona is much hotter than its atmosphere.
There are theories that try to best explain these phenomena, and our study exists to strengthen them. It is important that many astrophysicists work together on the same topic. It can make a theory stronger, closer to the truth, or rejected. The most important thing is to clarify the mystery and get closer to reality. In many or most cases, the closer we are to reality, the more complicated the study becomes and the more difficult accuracy begins to be.
This, among other topics in astrophysics, is a relevant matter. I believe that in theoretical physics, it is no longer related to a direct benefit. It is rather about enlarging horizons for people, understanding nature, using it for good purposes… It is important to communicate with engineers to make the link between theoretical physics and industry.
Astronomical discoveries have changed the world. Without them, I think it would have taken much more time to make things like MRIs, micro- wave ovens, etc. Engineers were inspired by phenomena that happen above our heads; when scientists first discovered them, they were not thinking about the industry. They only wanted to understand.
In 10 years, professionally, I hope I will be teaching at a university, and continuing my research and collaboration in astrophysics. I also want to learn other things, since learning has become much easier and more accessible. It would be a big mistake to stop learning.
Actually, I have always felt this curiosity to understand the cosmos. My mother used to sing to me a song about the stars and the moon. I found it fascinating! Then, my father offered me that encyclopedia for children, and the first chapter was about astronomy. Again, I found it mesmerizing. I read it hundreds of times! Then, I started to track documentaries on TV. When I had Internet access, I made researches, and used science and astronomy chat rooms to make friends that had the same interests as me. One of them even sent me a scope! It was one of the happiest days in my life. I started observations in the backyard, using the Stellarium software. I remember I had tears in my eyes the first time I saw Saturn and the Andromeda galaxy “in person”.
In college, I co-founded an astronomy club. Then, in engineering school, I joined a bigger astronomy club. My passion grew quickly. It was my first motivation, until I reached the Paris Observatory.
Inspiration came from stargazing. It was fascinating. But I could not have realized my dream easily if my mother hadn’t had believed in me. She saved money for me and invested it in my studies. She pushed me and still is pushing me to learn the most I can. We do believe that something we ignore is a burden. Knowledge enlightens the mind, without any pretension.
Besides the day I received my scope and the observation nights in my backyard, the first day in the Paris Observatory was also a memorable day. I was happy and thankful, but studying astrophysics is not the easiest thing in the world, even with a big passion for science and astronomy. The hardest part was when studies were difficult; I was abroad and I felt lonely. Being attached to my family, and with my father having a terrible disease, I had hard times to keep up with.
But I never gave up.
What do you do your PhD in and what is your main research topic?
My project is about vitamin D production in skin through UVB radiation and why the elderly tend to have lower vitamin D levels. The main study available on this topic is fairly a old paper published in the 80s with limitations and inconsistencies in its methodology (MacLaughlin and Holick, 1985). For example, they used skin from amputated legs, which we can assume is not really representative of an average healthy person’s skin. So, my aim is to shed more light on this topic through well-designed and controlled experiments. We will be taking small skin biopsies from a specific area of the body, the lower back/upper buttock, as it is a part of the body which does not get much sun exposure, therefore not affecting our results. We will then measure levels 7-dehydrocholesterol (7-DHC), which is a precursor of Vitamin D, and compare two data sets (young vs old age group).
Is yours a new approach, then?
I am developing an assay, more than an approach. I use HPLC (High Pressure Liquid Chromatography) and MS (Mass Spectroscopy) to do this. I am using skin samples, processing them in a specific way and then running them through the HPLC-MS system to determine the quantity of 7-DHC. However, to do this, I initially need skin samples from healthy volunteers. So I will be carrying our clinical research study where I will be able to collect skin biopsies. This involves writing and designing the study and obtaining ethical approvals. So in my PhD, I am involved both in lab research and the clinical aspects, which I think is a unique combination.
Do you collaborate with other research groups?
Yes, we do. I have two main supervisors. Prof. Ann Webb is based in the University of Manchester. She is a physicist specialising in solar radiation, but also a dean of graduate education. Prof. Lesley Rhodes is based in Salford Royal Foundation Trust Hospital. She is a dermatologist, but is also heavily involved in skin research. We also collaborate with another research group from University of East Anglia, and I often work in a lab based near Liverpool. It is good to see and be part of nice collaborative environment between different research groups and universities.
What motivated you to enter this field?
Oh, gosh, this is such a complex question! There are so many factors and I can talk about my motivations for a long time. Sometimes it is easy to forget about what brought me here, as routine and day-to-day life gets in the way, but it is good to remind myself once in a while.
I think there was a moment when I was 25 that I said to myself: I’m going to be 30 soon. I have a background in pharmacology, drug discovery and some dermatology/skin knowledge [Which I obtained during my internship at university spin-out Curapel and later at my job in medical devices company.]. Let’s use these skills and learn more about skin. I find it fascinating how light affects our skin and that up to 80% of aging is caused by light (Flament et al., 2013). Theoretically, if you lived in a dark room and never got exposed to UV light, you would look 30 forever! Though you might have problems with bones due to lack of Vitamin D. My PhD research is a fascinating topic full of contradictions.
Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
It would be nice to do something that can help people. Make people aware that sun can be bad in large doses and leads to skin cancer (mostly melanoma), and that artificial tanning beds are very dangerous (banned in some countries such as Brazil or Australia). Most of those beds don’t even emit UVB radiation, which is needed in small doses to produce Vitamin D, but UVA which only ages skin and brings no benefits. One session in tanning bed increases your chances of skin cancer by 20%! (Skin Cancer Foundation, 2012).
Yes, you may look tanned today, but your collagen is being damaged after excessive UV exposure leading to premature skin ageing (wrinkles, skin elasticity, etc.). It is a quite interesting social concept, as here in Europe everyone wants to be tanned, while in Asia, everyone wants to be fair. It is unfortunately the influence of marketing which aims to create artificial demand for skin tanning or lightening products. It would be great if this was finally challenged and more people would care about health rather than what is ‘the mainstream’.
What is your dream society?
I think my dream society would be a place where everyone has some and is able to use critical thinking skills, especially before making decisions that affect all of us. Looking at the world today I notice that a lot of people base their knowledge on what they are told by one newspaper or one TV station instead of questioning it and trying to get to the facts rather than opinions.
I believe that understanding the world we live in is a duty for us, as thinking conscious beings. Otherwise we are only creatures, like any other animal, that live only for the sake of it and not bring anything good to the society or human civilisation as a whole.
My dream society is a place where people understand the world around them, they are kind, tolerant and non-selfish.
What motivates you to get up in the morning?
I personally like to achieve aims, whether they are small or big. I cannot carry on very well without an aim. For example, tonight I am going to cook ‘this and that’. It is a small aim of course, but I like to wake up and know I have something to do. The long term aim is obviously to finish my PhD and then get a job in a research industry. So, that’s it, having aims motivates me to get up in the morning. Not at all times (laughter), but the majority of the time.
What would you tell your past and future self?
This is a very hard question! You know, my mom told me once something really great and I keep thinking about it whenever I start to regret the past. She said that there is no point regretting things we have done in the past. As in that moment, with all the facts and information we had, we have made the best decision we could for ourselves. We are (mostly) logical beings; therefore we always make the best choice we can at the time. That is a great advice I am very grateful for. For the future, I do not know. We will see what the future brings.
“When I have asked Octavia what is her dreams society, it was like listening to myself: a world where everyone uses critical thinking and where everyone understand the worlds around us, with respect and tolerance.”
“When I have asked Octavia what is her dreams society, it was like listening to myself: a world where everyone uses critical thinking and where everyone understand the worlds around us, with respect and tolerance.”
What do you do your PhD in, and what is your research topic?
I work in the field of neuroscience, I work with neurons. My specific research, my project, is about neuro-regeneration, so we are trying to find a way to make damaged neurons to work again.
How and why did you get interested in this topic?
Well, neuroscience in general, the brain in general, has always been very interesting to me, since I was studying biology at high school and then deciding to do biology at university. With everything that I was studying – you know, how the body works -, I realised that it comes from the brain, and we know so little about it. I have always been very curious about it and I said (to myself) I want to go and know more about it, and that is when I started looking for a PhD position in neuroscience.
Can you tell me a little bit more about your research topic?
Yes, so I work with neuroprogenitors. Progenitors means that they are kind of cells who are not neurons yet, but they have the potentiality to become neurons. As these kinds of cells are very interesting for neuroregeneration in general, we are trying to find different approaches to make these cells work again. In my case, we are trying to grow these cells in different areas of the brain to see if they actually work so they can be, in the future, transplanted. This is the main aim of the project.
Is yours a new approach?
Not really, because these kinds of cells are already being transplanted in animals, but it is very difficult to know the destiny of these cells. When you do such a big thing, when you just put cells in the animal brain, you do not really know what it is going to happen, or what these cells can do, so my approach is actually a step behind. We are looking (at this process) in vitro, so we have everything under control and we can actually see what is going to happen and see if these cells need a little help or something else to be functional in vivo later on.
How is your research going to affect society?
Oh well! Ahah. I’m not saying this because it is my project, but I am a very fond of it and I am happy that it is working and that I am having nice results, from my point of view. I hope this kind of approach and these results in general can be good for the future of regenerative medicine. So it could be really helpful to see and to state that these kind of approaches works or not in the future.
What motivated you in particular to enter this field of study?
Besides the interest that I always had in the field of neuroscience, I found this position here, in Trieste, in SISSA, and my professor is working with nanotechnology, so she is actually interfacing neurons with nanomaterials. I was attracted by the idea that these kind of things can be the future, so that is why I was really willing to come to this specific lab.
What makes you get up of bed, what motivates you in the morning?
Honestly the idea of finishing this project. Because PhD can be very long and can be very frustrating when you do not get good results, and when you have your deadline and other stuff. So now I am in that part of the PhD project where you are actually almost done, so when I get up, and it’s not that I am overthinking my project, but the idea to go there (the lab), to have nice things done, to finish the work and then have a publication, and maybe to go on and move to a different project in the same field. So yes, trying to finish this chapter and then go on is what motivate me.
How do you see yourself in 5 years? What would you like to do?
Well, this is the most difficult question. I have no answer to that, because of the way I am. I am not very thoughtful about the future, I am not making plans. That is me, and that is research. I mean, academia is like this, you never really know. I am going to finish here and then I have no idea if I am going to stay in Italy, or if I am going to move to US or to just stay in Europe. Or, if I am going to get married. I actually don’t have any idea. If you ask me what I would like to do, I would love to be a University professor. I would love to keep doing research, to have my class and to have kids.
What makes life meaningful?
I think the most important thing in life is family, friends, love. I mean, I love my project and I love my work, but work is not life, so people.
What does the world and the society need right now in your opinion?
Humility. I think that now people start to be very pretentious, very arrogant. They pretend to know, they pretend to be stronger than the others, they put themselves before the others and there is no communication. So I really think that everyone of us should step back and listen to the others. Also empathy (is something the society needs.) We should empathise more, because people are very selfish, in my opinion.
What does science need right now?
I think that science needs to get less involved in politics and bond less to money. Because, you know, researches are very much related to money, to grant, and so on. Every kind of topics can be more or less interesting to study depending on the impact and on the money.
I think research needs to discover again the curiosity about pure research and to trust young people more, because they have a more free mind. If you talk to people and professors that have been in research for many years, they think the same old way, because they know how things are working; but instead, young people may not know how things work, but their way of thinking could be a good approach to go to a different direction. So I believe science needs to be more free from the society and to discover the curiosity to study again.
Would you like to say anything else?
Yes, I would say something to young researchers and to biology lovers like me. I’m always thinking if I had the possibility to go back when I was finishing high school and decide to study biology or economics or law or languages, I would change and not do research. Research is hard and future (in research) is very weak, you know? You never get enough money to build your dream house. So I would change it for something more useful, or more understandable by society. But then, if I think about myself 10 years ago and if someone would have said to me “even if you love biology you should do economics”, I would have said No.
I would tell people and students, young girls and boys that love biology, that they can go for it, because it will be worth it if you like doing it, but it is going to be very hard. So weight what you want to do, if you love to study more than having a nice life (kids and family or whatever) then, do it. But think about it.
I loved interviewing Teresa about her research. Neuron regeneration is a very difficult field as neurons usually do not regenerate themselves once damaged.
I believe that her project will be extremely useful to the people affected to brain damage and to the progress of today’s medicine in general.
I loved interviewing Teresa about her research. Neuron regeneration is a very difficult field as neurons usually do not regenerate themselves once damaged.
I believe that her project will be extremely useful to the people affected to brain damage and to the progress of today’s medicine in general.