Joan-Carles Mèlich, Juan Francisco Ferré and María Santana

The first session of the series «Reading Sade Today» explores the French writer's legacy in contemporary thought from the standpoint of two key concepts that run through his work.

18.00 - 19.15 | Transgression
With Juan Francisco Ferré, María Santana, and Eloy Fernández Porta 

Sade’s questioning the norms of gender, freedom, and evil resulted in his being imprisoned and socially ostracised for the rest of his life. However, a century later, he was to become a source of inspiration for a range of thinkers who wished to overturn the status quo. The writer Juan Francisco Ferré and the philosopher María Santana explore the transgressive impulse in Sade’s work in a conversation moderated by the essayist Eloy Fernández Porta.

19.15-20.30 | Morality

With Joan-Carles Mèlich and Laura Llevadot 

The question of morality and its role when it comes to deciding what is considered socially acceptable was one of the key themes of Sade’s work. When exploring the limits of morality, in his day governed by law and religion, Sade developed an imaginary of cruelty based on the most extreme human impulses. In this session, the philosopher Joan-Carles Mèlich will discuss the relationship between cruelty and morality with the philosopher Laura Llevadot.