Aurkezpenak eta eztabaidak. Kafea = Presentaciones y debates. Café

To urge on and start this conversation, we have invited people from different areas with different profiles, with the intention of doing a tour of the many directions and junctions along which the subject of stimulants will take us. As stated in the introduction, the subject of stimulants has many nuances and folds: new theories about colonialism, hidden relationships between the biological body and the political economy, appetite and health, modern and contemporary notions of space and the public issue...among others. Tables are organised around various substances: tobacco, sugar, coffee and cocoa. Contributions made by the guests will lead to conversation.

The identification of coffee with sobriety made Puritans praise it as an indispensable element in the path towards a more rational, industrious society. The French historian, Jules Michelet, entrusted the black liquid with the mission of sobering up an entire era. Coffee (Café) also serves as a name for the public space par excellence which is dedicated to conversation and discussion, as well as economic activity. It is the ideal place for the exchange of ideas and the ideas of exchange. Women, relegated to a domestic sphere, were excluded from these spaces, leading to protests which in some countries like England anticipated the suffragette riots. In the home, along with tea, coffee transformed the rituals of the table, generating new manners as well as new codes of relationship.

Today, it is the only psychoactive substance that has overcome resistance and disapproval in the entire world, ranking among the main goods that circulate in the global market. What readings can be made today of this omnipresence of caffeine?