Preface

Abstract

The challenge of organizing the fourth International Conference on Science and Literature in a post-pandemic scenario, after multiple postponements, meetings, videoconferences and other inconveniences, finally became a reality on 30 June to 2 July 2022 in Girona. The effects of the pandemic on webinars, zooms, etc. were felt when it came to confirming the participation of speakers, with a certain tendency to avoid travel and consequent expenses, which made the organization’s task more arduous. In spite of everything, we went ahead to achieve the objective we had set ourselves. Fortunately, the quality of the speakers provided ‘the pillars of wisdom’ that supported and gave shape to the edifice we had sketched out. When the level of the participants is so high, it is difficult to single out the best of the best. After 3 days of intense work and grateful for the invaluable collaboration and understanding of all the participants, we are satisfied with the result obtained, despite a certain bitter taste due to the perception that the pandemic situation has changed the soul of the Congresses. We hope that videoconferences will remain a type of scientific communication but not the way of communication. The other great concern or question is how tomake the university community, especially the new generations, interested in a multidisciplinary, let us say, Renaissance education, which does not lead them to super-specialization and the creation of isolated worlds without seeing or knowing the relationship between the scientific world and the humanistic world. In any case, the high quality of the participants at the conference and the depth and complexity of the themes have left a hope of better times and, as Leonard Cohen sings: