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In this season finale, Giuseppe Porcaro looks back at the experiment of Europarama together with a stellar line-up of contributors that join in to explore the value of science fiction as a method to dive into Europe's futures. Cory Doctorow is a Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and science fiction author who serves as co-editor of the blog Boing Boing. He is an activist in favour of liberalising copyright laws and a proponent of the Creative Commons organization, using some of their licences for his books. Srećko Horvat Born in Croatia, he is a philosopher and and activist. Srećko is regarded as one of the central figures of the new left in post-Yugoslavia. He has authored more than ten books, including What Does Europe Want?, The Radicality of Love, and Poetry from the Future. Niels Daalgard is a danish academic and science fiction critic whose PhD research into Danish science fiction is the first on such a topic to be funded by the Danish Research Council for the Humanities. Dalgaard is science fiction reviewer for the newspaper Politiken and editor of the critical journal Proxima (since 1981). Laura Horn is Associate Professor at the Department of Social Sciences and Business of the Roskilde University in Denmark. Her main research area is Global Political Economy, with particular attention to the regional manifestation of these structures and processes in the context of European integration. Ian Manners is professor at the Department of Political Science of the University of Copenhagen.works at the nexus of critical social theory and the study of the European Union in planetary politics. His current research interest looks at the EU and planetary politics at the intersections of global society, economy, environment, conflict, and politics. Marije Martens is one of the co-founders of Are We Europe, a collective of European journalist and content creators. She’s the lead designer of the magazine and has always had an interest in the interplay between design, storytelling, nationalism and Europe. She also loves podcasts and stories. Mick ter Reehorst is the managing director and co-founder of Are We Europe. Mick has studied journalism and European studies in Amsterdam and Paris, so it all makes sense, even though he’s mostly occupied with the entrepreneurial side of things. Also, he thinks that Europe needs a new narrative, because this is not where things are supposed to be headed. Oh, and he loves podcasts. ...and yours, faithfully, Giuseppe Porcaro author of DISCO SOUR, creator and producer of Europarama, head of communications of Bruegel, lover, and dreamer.
We are around the time when we celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Moon landing. And it is not a coincidence that for this latest space time exploration of europarama we would like to take you all in an interplanetary journey. And imagine a Europe that expands towards the outer space. After all, the science fiction dreams of going to the other sky objects started here in Europe, in 1865 with Jules Verne’s "From the Earth to the Moon". Even if even Jules Verne imagined that the first bullet to be shoot from our planet would have taken place in the United States. If we’ll have to imagine a deep future interplanetary European Union, how this would look like? Richard-Molard is an author working and writing from Brussels. Magna Carta Galactica is his first Sci-Fi Novel but Gabriel is a regular columnist for the French and German press. He is born in Montpellier and has worked in Strasbourg, Berlin, Cologne and Brussels. In Magna Carta Galactica he works about his primary passions: European Politics and Space discovery. Giuseppe Porcaro is the author of DISCO SOUR, a novel about Europe and democracy in the age of algorithms, among the winners of the Altiero Spinelli Prize for Outrech of the European Union in 2018. Giuseppe is interested in how the intersection between technology and politics is moving towards uncharted territories in the future. He also focuses on narrative-building and political representations in the European Union. He works as the head of communications for Bruegel.
Where politics and democracy are heading into the future? It is a theme that has run throughout the history of science fiction. Something that already in 1921, Yevgeny Zamyatin tried to imagine in his novel “We”, for example, and later developed in different directions by Orwell, Huxley and the likes. The following quote from “We” recalls the tone and the imagery of these reflections about the future of democracy, back in the past. A sort of archeology of the Future. *It goes without saying that this does not resemble the disordered, disorganized elections of the Ancients, when – it seems funny to say it – the result of an election was not known beforehand. Building a government on totally unaccounted – for happenstance, blindly – what could be more senseless? And yet still, it turns out, it took centuries to understand this. * Malka Older condensed a reflection on the topic in her Centenal Cycle, a series of cyberpunk technothrillers beginning with Infomocracy. Her premise is set in a not so distant future ad it portrays a world governed by micro-democracies. Countries have been replaced by districts (called centenals) of 100,000 people, and the entire world turns out to vote once a decade for their local government. The political party elected to the most centenals becomes the Supermajority, setting policy and direction for the world at large. Needless to say, the stakes are high as a new election approaches. In this episode we will start our space-time exploration of today with that premise. How would Europe look like under Infomocracy? Malka Older is a writer, humanitarian worker, and holds a PhD at the Centre de Sociologie des Organisations at science po in Paris studying governance and disasters. Named Senior Fellow for Technology and Risk at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs for 2015, she has more than eight years of experience in humanitarian aid and development, and has responded to complex emergencies and natural disasters in Uganda, Darfur, Indonesia, Japan, and Mali. Her first novel Infomocracy has been published by Tor.com in 2016, starting the so-far trilogy of the centenal cycle, which comprises Null States and her latest State Tectonics. She is one of the nominees for the prestigious Hugo Award for 2019 and she recently published for the New York Times in their series op-eds from the future. Giuseppe Porcaro is the author of DISCO SOUR, a novel about Europe and democracy in the age of algorithms, among the winners of the Altiero Spinelli Prize for Outrech of the European Union in 2018. Giuseppe is interested in how the intersection between technology and politics is moving towards uncharted territories in the future. He also focuses on narrative-building and political representations in the European Union. He works as the head of communications for Bruegel.
This episode of Europarama has been recorded at the University of Roskilde in Denmark, during the workshop fEUtures: science fiction and the future of Europe on 4th June 2019. During the workshop academics and science fiction authors discussed science fiction as a methodological tool in European Studies. Giuseppe Porcaro had the chance to have a long conversation with Michal Hvorecky and discuss the Europe of the future described in his latest novel, Troll (2017), where trolling factories become pandemic and where the government controls the people by spewing out hate 24 hours a day. You can read an excerpt in English of the book here. The conversation also touched the role of science fiction as a political tool from the personal experience of Michal since back in the days of Czechoslovakia to the current political environment of contemporary Slovak republic, giving an important testimony for the listeners of Europarama. Michal Hvorecky is the author of Troll (2017) and many other novels. His books have been translated into German, Polish, Czech and Italian. Translations of his fiction and journalism have appeared in print in Germany, the United Kingdom, Slovenia, Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic. The novel Plush was dramatised and performed in the Prague theatre Na zabradli and in Schauspiel Hannover in Germany. In addition, Hvorecky writes regularly for various newspapers and magazines. He has been awarded several literary prizes and fellowships, including the Literary Colloquium in Berlin, MuseumsQuartier in Vienna, Goethe Institut in Munich, and an International Writing Program in the United States. The author also contributes to Slovak newspapers such as daily SME. His upcoming utopian novel called Tahiti will be published in 2020. Giuseppe Porcaro is the author of DISCO SOUR, a novel about Europe and democracy in the age of algorithms, among the winners of the Altiero Spinelli Prize for Outrech of the European Union in 2018. Giuseppe is interested in how the intersection between technology and politics is moving towards uncharted territories in the future. He also focuses on narrative-building and political representations in the European Union. He works as the head of communications for Bruegel.
Jacque Fresco was an American futurist and self-described social engineerb he directed the Venus Project and advocated global implementation of a socioeconomic system which he referred to as a "resource-based economy". The Venus Project proposes an alternative vision of what the future can be if we apply what we already know in order to achieve a sustainable new world civilization. It calls for a straightforward redesign of our culture in which the age-old inadequacies of war, poverty, hunger, debt and unnecessary human suffering are viewed not only as avoidable, but as totally unacceptable. In this episode Giuseppe Porcaro speaks with Andrei Ivanov, who is a passionate of Fresco's utopian vision, and together they design The Europa Project, inspired by Fresco's. How a future Europe would look like if mobile phones would be out of fashion, people will prefer to ride horses, play theatre in the street, and robots will work for all of us? Andrei Ivanov, born in Estonia in 1971, knows, in his own words, “all the ups and downs of a Soviet education”, as he grew up in “a typical proletarian Russian family”. Although he sees himself as part of the Russian literary tradition, he identifies Estonia as his home country and his creative point of departure. After graduating from the Tallinn Pedagogical University (now Tallinn University), where he wrote his thesis on the language of Vladimir Nabokov, Ivanov briefly worked as a teacher, moved to Scandinavia and explored Denmark for a number of years, studied several languages, and wrote his first novel. His Russian-language novels Hanuman’s Journey to Lolland (2009), Bizarre (2013), and Confession of a Lunatic (2015) recount his experiences in Scandinavia. Hanuman’s Journey to Lolland was shortlisted for the Russian Booker Prize (2012) and won the Cultural Endowment of Estonia’s Prize for Russian-Language Literature (2010). It was first published in Russian in Tallinn in 2009; was released in Moscow in 2010; was translated into Estonian (2012), German (2012) and French (2016); and was staged at Thalia Theater (Hamburg, 2014) by Ene-Liis Semper and Tiit Ojasoo of Theater NO99. Giuseppe Porcaro is the author of DISCO SOUR, a novel about Europe and democracy in the age of algorithms, among the winners of the Altiero Spinelli Prize for Outrech of the European Union in 2018. Giuseppe is interested in how the intersection between technology and politics is moving towards uncharted territories in the future. He also focuses on narrative-building and political representations in the European Union. He works as the head of communications for Bruegel.
Uchronia refers to a hypothetical or fictional time-period of our world, in contrast to altogether fictional lands or worlds. A concept similar to alternate history but different in the manner that uchronic times are not easily defined, mainly placed in some distant or unspecified point in time, sometimes reminiscent of a constructed world. In this episode Giuseppe Porcaro , Julie Novakova and Vilma Kadlečková experiment with the genre and they explore a universe where noble families still rule over Europe, feudalism never fell, and perhaps the Austria-Hungary Empire would still be alive. But most importantly, we are in the future, and royal families run the businesses, including space stations, and top notch research to find the source of eternal youth. Vilma Kadlečková has written the comprehensive pentalogy Mycelium, a complex work in which humanity is merely a less advanced species within the universe. The majority of her works belong to the “Legends of Argenite” cycle. These are tales on the boundary of science fiction and fantasy, mapping the future history of the universe, which is similar to ours, but which contains “argenite”: a fictional mineral serving as a source of energy with psychotronic powers. Vilma received the Book of the Year award from the Czech Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror, and the Best Original Czech and Slovak Book of the Year 2013. Julie Novakova is not only an author and a translator but also an evolutionary biologist and takes a keen interest in planetary science. She has published short fiction in Clarkesworld, Asimov’s, Analog and elsewhere. Some of her works have been also translated into Chinese, Romanian, Estonian, German, Filipino and Portuguese. She received the Encouragement Award of the European science fiction and fantasy society in 2013, the Aeronautilus award for the best Czech short story of 2014 and 2015, and for the best novel of 2015. She’s currently polishing her first novel in English and translating more Czech stories into English. Giuseppe Porcaro is the author of DISCO SOUR, a novel about Europe and democracy in the age of algorithms, among the winners of the Altiero Spinelli Prize for Outrech of the European Union in 2018. Giuseppe is interested in how the intersection between technology and politics is moving towards uncharted territories in the future. He also focuses on narrative-building and political representations in the European Union. He works as the head of communications for Bruegel.
People who do a lot of gardening probably know what “rhizome” is in botanical terms. It is a kind of plant that pops out of the ground over an expanding area, giving the impression that many separate plants are emerging in close proximity to one another, but in fact these ostensibly individual “plants” are parts of one big plant, and are interconnected under the ground. It has a distinct philosophical meaning, too, which is associated with the famous French duo, Felix Guattari and Gilles Deleuze. In Deleuze and Guattari’s work “rhizome” is roughly the philosophical counterpart of the botanical term, suggesting that many things in the world are rhizomes, or rhizomatically interconnected, although such connections are not always visible. Animals or insects that live symbiotically appear to be an obvious example, such as the little birds that clean crocodiles’ teeth when these reptiles bask in the sun with their huge jaws open: instead of eating the birds, the crocodiles let them feed on the bits of meat, etc, between their teeth — their teeth are cleaned, and the birds are fed, in this way forming a rhizome. After all, when one sees them separately, few people would guess that their species-economy is rhizomatically conjoined. In this episode Sabrina Calvo and Giuseppe Porcaro imagine a future of Europe as a sort of rhizome, where traditions, instead of nations are interconnected, where binary definitions are not able to explain connection within diversity. And by doing so, they also celebrate the death of dystopia. Sabrina Calvo is an award-winning writer and game designer. She likes to think of her work as a thoughtful, sensitive anarchism. She lives a quiet, focused life between Montreal and Paris. Her latest novel, Toxoplasma, won the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire in 2018, which is something similar to the Hugo Awards for France. Toxoplasma is set in a future where the Internet as we know disappeared, the city of Montreal is besieged by the federal army and survives as a sort of anarchist commune, and the world is kind of falling apart. Giuseppe Porcaro is the author of DISCO SOUR, a novel about Europe and democracy in the age of algorithms, among the winners of the Altiero Spinelli Prize for Outrech of the European Union in 2018. Giuseppe is interested in how the intersection between technology and politics is moving towards uncharted territories in the future. He also focuses on narrative-building and political representations in the European Union. He works as the head of communications for Bruegel. Europarama is a podcast series about science fiction and the future of Europe by Giuseppe Porcaro, brought to you by the Are We Europe podcasting family.
What’s your favourite European utopia or dystopia? Will Europe become a wasteland of zombies? What if Jean-Claude Juncker evolved into a bionic superhero and murdered Hungary’s Viktor Orban? And will the EU implement a universal basic income for all its citizens? We are inviting you to take part in our collective storytelling experiment / live podcasting session and help us reimagine the future of Europe, together with Giuseppe Porcaro, author of the sci-fi novel Disco Sour, and host of the podcast Europarama. With an introduction by Europe's favourite political junkies De Kiesmannen
In the era of political bots, fake news, and digital propaganda, what would happen if a Tinder-like app replaced elections? Is it possible to automate democracy or would policies become sellable outcomes? In this episode we dwelve into DISCO SOUR, a novel by Giuseppe Porcaro where a dating app addicted politician embarks on an existential odyssey to save democracy from tinderpolitics. Bastian Balthazar Bux is a space-lover, a smartphone addict and a leading member of The Federation®, the European network of civil society and local governments. In the aftermath of a continental civil-war, nation-states have collapsed, the European Union™ holds on preventing anarchy, and it’s mandatory to include branded trademarks in common language. Bastian has just been unexpectedly dumped by his boyfriend through an app, the BreakupShop™ service. Heavy hearted, he just wants to drink, work and forget his romantic woes. However, he discovers that Nathan Ziggy Zukowsky, the alleged illegitimate son of Roman Polanski, is planning to sell plebiscitum®, a tinder-like app that is meant to replace elections, at the same conference he is invited to attend in Chile. Haunted by his past relationships he embarks on a mission to save democracy. Giuseppe Porcaro is the author of DISCO SOUR, a novel about Europe and democracy in the age of algorithms, among the winners of the Altiero Spinelli Prize for Outrech of the European Union in 2018. Giuseppe is interested in how the intersection between technology and politics is moving towards uncharted territories in the future. He also focuses on narrative-building and political representations in the European Union. He works as the head of communications for Bruegel. Europarama is a podcast series about science fiction and the future of Europe by Giuseppe Porcaro, brought to you by the Are We Europe podcasting family. Europarama is a follow-up project to DISCO SOUR, a novel about Europe and democracy in the age of algorithms.
For the time-space exploration of today, We reflect on the fact a lot of science fiction worldbuilding results in scenarios that are both dystopian and utopian, depending on the viewpoint. Margaret Atwoods said: "Better never means better for everyone. It always means worse, for some." Somehow, this reminds the latest novel of the guest author of this episode, which is an experimental work set on different time levels, narrated from two perspectives, and revolving around the themes of identity, surveillance, memory and strategies for dealing with traumatic situations. Starting from this background Anja Kümmel and Giuseppe Porcaro imagine a deep-future Europe were two societies live completely sealed off from each other. Would they ever interact or clash? Anja Kümmel was born in Karlsruhe, Germany, in 1978. She studied Gender Studies and Spanish in Los Angeles, Madrid and Hamburg. Since 2009 she works as a freelance writer and journalist. Apart from several publications in literary magazines and anthologies, she published five novels: „La Danza Mortale“ (2004), „Das weiße Korsett“ (2007), „Hope’s Obsession“ (2008), „Träume Digitaler Schläfer“ (2012) and „V oder die Vierte Wand“ (2016). She received a grant from the Art Foundation Baden-Württemberg in 2007 and the GEDOK Literary Award 2010. In 2010 she was a writer in residence at Künstlerhaus Lukas, Ahrenshoop, and in 2012 at Kommandantenhaus Dilsberg. Giuseppe Porcaro is the author of DISCO SOUR, a novel about Europe and democracy in the age of algorithms, among the winners of the Altiero Spinelli Prize for Outrech of the European Union in 2018. Giuseppe is interested in how the intersection between technology and politics is moving towards uncharted territories in the future. He also focuses on narrative-building and political representations in the European Union. He works as the head of communications for Bruegel. Europarama is a podcast series about science fiction and the future of Europe by Giuseppe Porcaro, brought to you by the Are We Europe podcasting family. Europarama is a follow-up project to DISCO SOUR, a novel about Europe and democracy in the age of algorithms.
A growing number of science fiction authors are talking about global warming overtly, imagining futures full of flooded cities, droughts, melting icecaps, and other disasters. There is even a new label used for this, climate fiction or "cli-fi". Shelley Streeby, a professor from the University of California recently published an extensive analysis of the role of speculative fiction in imagining the future of climate change. She reviewed the various activists, artists, and science fiction writers that, from the 1960s to the present, have imagined the consequences of global warming and its impacts on our future. Authors such as Octavia Butler and Leslie Marmon Silko, movie directors such as Bong Joon-Ho, and creators of digital media such as the makers of the Maori web series Anamata Future News have all envisioned future worlds during and after environmental collapse, engaging audiences to think about the earth’s sustainability. As public awareness of climate change has grown, so has the popularity of works of climate fiction that connect science with activism. In this episode Joana Bertholo and Giuseppe Porcaro dive into cli-fi and imagine the impact of global warming on the coastal areas of Europe. We are a hundred years from now and geography has changed. The sea level has risen and the coastline of our continent has heavily changed. How would this new geography of Europe look like? Joana Bértholo is a novelist and a play-writer based in Lisbon, after living abroad for many years, in Europe and South America, with a highlight to the year spent in Buenos Aires, volunteering at Eloisa Cartonera, a very special book publisher that works with the «cartoneros», urban waste scavengers, and their hand-made books.Joana pursues a wide scope of interests through writing, using both the book as the stage and a platform to investigate on ecology, technology, sustainability, narratives, among others topics. She has published three novels, two books of short-stories and a children’s book with Editorial Caminho, one of the most prestigious Portuguese publishing houses; as well as other texts with other publishers in different collections and anthologies. Her latest novel is titled «Ecologia» (Ecology) and is set in a near future where the commodification of society reaches a point that language is privatised and we begin to pay for the words we use. Giuseppe Porcaro is the author of DISCO SOUR, a novel about Europe and democracy in the age of algorithms, among the winners of the Altiero Spinelli Prize for Outrech of the European Union in 2018. Giuseppe is interested in how the intersection between technology and politics is moving towards uncharted territories in the future. He also focuses on narrative-building and political representations in the European Union. He works as the head of communications for Bruegel. Europarama is a podcast series about science fiction and the future of Europe by Giuseppe Porcaro, brought to you by the Are We Europe podcasting family. Europarama is a follow-up project to DISCO SOUR, a novel about Europe and democracy in the age of algorithms.
The Fractured Europe series is inspired by Cold War spy fiction: bleak, powerful stories which often rely on national borders for political and narrative tension. Once the Iron Curtain fell, Dave says, the spy genre lost its way. He realised that writing the thriller that he really wanted would mean reintroducing borders. But where would the barriers lie? For some time, he had been thinking about a family of uncanny map-makers. Eventually he had them create different versions of England to overlay our own. The Fractured Europe novels follow a spy, Rudi, as he crosses the boundaries of reality, while Europe itself breaks into ever smaller nation states, some no larger than a city. Dave Hutchinson was born in Sheffield. After reading American Studies at the University of Nottingham, he became a journalist. He’s the author of five collections of short stories and one novel, and his novella The Push was shortlisted for the 2010 BSFA award for short fiction. He has also edited two anthologies and co-edited a third. His short story 'The Incredible Exploding Man' featured in the first Solaris Rising anthology, and appeared in Year’s Best Science Fiction collection. He lives in north London with his wife and several cats. Giuseppe Porcaro is the author of DISCO SOUR, a novel about Europe and democracy in the age of algorithms, among the winners of the Altiero Spinelli Prize for Outrech of the European Union in 2018. Giuseppe is interested in how the intersection between technology and politics is moving towards uncharted territories in the future. He also focuses on narrative-building and political representations in the European Union. He works as the head of communications for Bruegel. Europarama is a podcast series about science fiction and the future of Europe by Giuseppe Porcaro, brought to you by the Are We Europe podcasting family. Europarama is a follow-up project to DISCO SOUR, a novel about Europe and democracy in the age of algorithms.
Science fiction cityscapes have awed audiences since Metropolis debuted in Germany in 1927. Steve Graham, a professor of cities and society in the Global Urban Research Unit at Newcastle University has highlighted such reciprocal relationship between science fiction and reality. Think, for example, that the future Los Angeles of Blade Runner implies the end of nationalism. The flooded New York of Spielberg’s Artificial Intelligence implies climate change and loss. The upper middle class verticality of Spike Jonze’s Her implies the economic and cultural results of widespread automation. These cities aren’t just predictions, they’re caricatures of our culture that eventually inform real world decision making. Brussels, to a certain extent, is a microcosm of the European Union. And speculation and fiction about the future of Brussels can tell us a thing or two about the future of Europe. With Joost Vandecasteele we are going to imagine a future where the Capital of the European Union moves to Budapest, leaving Brussels with a wasteland of empty offices which will be re-used in a very peculiar way. Joost Vandecasteele is a Belgium writer and author of books like Massa, Jungle and Bella his debut short story collection was made into a television series called Generation B. He is working currently on a new book, game and film Giuseppe Porcaro is the author of DISCO SOUR, a novel about Europe and democracy in the age of algorithms, among the winners of the Altiero Spinelli Prize for Outrech of the European Union in 2018. Giuseppe is interested in how the intersection between technology and politics is moving towards uncharted territories in the future. He also focuses on narrative-building and political representations in the European Union. He works as the head of communications for Bruegel.
*Europarama is a podcast series about science fiction and the future of Europe brought to you by the Are We Europe podcasting family. * In “The Principle of Hope” Ernst Bloch lays out the many ways in which hope and the human desire for liberation and fulfillment appear in our everyday lives. Amidst Europe’s post-war reconstruction, in 1954, Bloch restored honour to the idea of utopia by seeing it not as a pre-existing programmatic state which had to be reached under wise and all-knowing leadership either of the party or the church, but as a process driven by human beings, driven on by their material hunger as well as their dreams of overcoming that hunger. In a nutshell, Bloch says that what drives us on are our daydreams of a better and brighter world. Inspired by these, Giuseppe Porcaro and Emmi Itäranta imagine possible utopian elements in a future version of our continent. **How such a utopian version of Europe will look like? ** Emmi Itäranta grew up in Finland and now resides in Canterbury, UK. She writes fiction in Finnish and English. Her debut novel Memory of Water has won numerous awards, including a James Tiptree Jr. Award honors list mention and the Kalevi Jäntti Prize for young writers in Finland. Emmi's work has been translated to more than 20 languages. Coming from an eclectic writing background, her former life includes stints as a columnist, theatre critic, dramaturge, scriptwriter and press officer. Giuseppe Porcaro is the author of DISCO SOUR, a novel about Europe and democracy in the age of algorithms, among the winners of the Altiero Spinelli Prize for Outrech of the European Union in 2018. Giuseppe is interested in how the intersection between technology and politics is moving towards uncharted territories in the future. He also focuses on narrative-building and political representations in the European Union. He works as the head of communications for Bruegel.
In 1964, Isaac Asimov wrote a piece for the New York Times, after visiting the World’s Fair in New York. In his piece, he wondered what life would be like in 2014. He got a lot of stuff right--from the development of computers, to transportation, and even demographics. So in the shadow of Asimov, Giuseppe Porcaro and Loranne Vella imagine a fictional Europe in 2064. What does that fictional, future Europe look like? Loranne Vella is a Maltese writer, translator and performer. She co-wrote the three volumes of the Fiddien Trilogy with Simon Bartolo. Each of the three volumes won the National Book Prize in Malta. In 2012, her novel Magna Mater won 2nd prize in the category for young adults. She lives in Brussels where she also directs the interdisciplinary performance art group Barumbara Collective. Rokit, her latest novel, was published to critical and public acclaim in March 2017, and won the Maltese National Book Prize in 2018. Giuseppe Porcaro, is the author of DISCO SOUR, a novel about Europe and democracy in the age of algorithms. Europarama is a podcast series about science fiction and the future of Europe brought to you by the Are We Europe podcasting family.
Covering things we missed in the last two weeks: The big vote of no confidence! We are referring of course to Greek president Alexis Tsipras, who survived a confidence vote this week, something that as many as six people in the UK noticed. Brexit continues to be a straightforward affair for everyone, and Berlusconi wants to be EU Commission president. Right-Wing Watch: Old People are sharing fake news at an astonishing rate. I feel like we knew this already, but now it's confirmed by academics. Read the original article here: https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/9/18174631/old-people-fake-news-facebook-share-nyu-princeton Finally we speak to Giuseppe Porcaro of think-tank Bruegel about the Internet of Things, data-gathering, direct democracy, and his book "Disco Sour". Follow Guiseppe on twitter: twitter.com/porcarorama Get Disco Sour on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07CV335MF/ Follow us on twitter: twitter.com/CandDPodcast We're also on Facebook and Spotify! Just search "Connected and Disaffected".
What a week. There's been wonderful news from Ireland and so much drama in Italy that we actually had to re-record part of this week's show at the last minute. Speaking of Italian thrillers: we've been chatting to Giuseppe Porcaro, author of brand-new sci-fi novel DISCO SOUR (https://amzn.to/2IVCi7s), about why he decided to set it in a parallel European universe. And Katy's been talking to Sweden-based Florian Tirnovan about his great project organizing a talent show for deaf people from all around the continent. Plus: a thunderstorm, a requisitioned towel, and an unlikely friendship in the most beautiful (?) corner of Europe. Please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts if you liked the show, it helps other people find us! apple.co/2Ez2KN8 We're supported by Stackry, the global leader in parcel forwarding from the US. Use our special link & coupon EUROPEANS: bit.ly/European3 twitter.com/EuropeansPod facebook.com/europeanspodcast instagram.com/europeanspodcast
It’s a tech special this week — but you don’t have to be a geek to understand any of it. Host Ryan Heath talks to Tristan Harris, who spent three years as a design ethicist at Google and has been called “the closest thing Silicon Valley has to a conscience.” He’s the co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, an organization with a bold mission: “to stop technology hijacking our minds.” Ryan also speaks to Paul Jordan of the International Association of Privacy Professionals about Europe’s new blockbuster data privacy regulation, the GDPR. Paul explains what all those messages clogging up our inboxes mean for governments, companies and individuals. Switching from tech fact to tech fiction, Ryan chats to Giuseppe Porcaro, author of a new book, Disco Sour, which presents a dystopian view of the future where politics is governed by a Tinder-style app. And our podcast panelists, Lina Aburous and Alva Finn, debate the big event in Brussels this week: Mark Zuckerberg’s appearance at the European Parliament — and how what should have been an EU Thumbs Up turned into an EU WTF. We also talk about a physical attack on a Greek mayor and the embellished CV of Italy’s likely new prime minister.