Fronteiras do Pensamento ''(Portuguese: Frontiers of Thought)'' is a Brazilian cultural project that promotes conferences featuring internationally known intellectuals in order to discuss issues of contemporaneity. Scientific discovery, social research, sustainable solutions, philosophical theses, influences on the ways of understanding and interpreting the world, social/political leadership and activism, are a few of the issues discussed during Frontiers of Thought's annual conference seasons. The project's online content is freely available worldwide, and offers hundreds of videos, subtitled in Portuguese, Spanish and English, as well as articles, news and interviews.

History

Fronteiras do Pensamento is a cultural project conceived in 2006, in the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil. In 2007, during its sixth edition, Christopher Hitchens, Jorge Castañeda,

Luc Ferry Luc Ferry (; born 3 January 1951) is a French philosopher and politician, and a proponent of secular humanism. He is a former member of the Saint-Simon Foundation think-tank. Biography He received an Agrégation de philosophie (1975), a Docto ...

, Michel Maffesoli and Michel Houellebecq – among others – spoke on the stage of the Salão de Atos in the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) giving the project international projection. In 2008, the second edition featured 25 lecturers. Edgar Morin,

David Lynch David Keith Lynch (born January 20, 1946) is an American filmmaker, visual artist and actor. A recipient of an Academy Honorary Award in 2019, Lynch has received three Academy Award nominations for Best Director, and the César Award for Be ...

Philip Glass Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimal music, minimalism, being built up fr ...

and

Wim Wenders Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders (; born 14 August 1945) is a German filmmaker, playwright, author, and photographer. He is a major figure in New German Cinema. Among many honors, he has received three nominations for the Academy Award for Best Docum ...

were among them. During that year, the project also took place at the city of

Salvador, Brazil Salvador (English: ''Savior'') is a Brazilian municipality and capital city of the state of Bahia. Situated in the Zona da Mata in the Northeast Region of Brazil, Salvador is recognized throughout the country and internationally for its cuisine ...

. In 2009, lectures featured

Eric Maskin Eric Stark Maskin (born December 12, 1950) is an American economist and mathematician. He was jointly awarded the 2007 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Leonid Hurwicz and Roger Myerson "for having laid the foundations of mechanism d ...

, Howard Gardner, Steven Pinker and Tom Wolfe and, in 2010, Carlo Ginzburg,

Daniel Dennett Daniel Clement Dennett III (born March 28, 1942) is an American philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relat ...

, Daniel Cohn-Bendit and

Mario Vargas Llosa Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquess of Vargas Llosa (born 28 March 1936), more commonly known as Mario Vargas Llosa (, ), is a Peruvian novelist, journalist, essayist and former politician, who also holds Spanish citizenship. Vargas Ll ...

, who spoke only a few days after being awarded the Nobel Literature Prize. Until 2011, Frontiers of Thought had already featured 98 internationally known guests. During that year, seasons extended to the city of São Paulo. The special season kept taking place in Salvador and, now, in

Florianópolis Florianópolis () is the capital and second largest city of the state of Santa Catarina, in the South region of Brazil. The city encompasses Santa Catarina Island and surrounding small islands, as well as part of the mainland. It has a populat ...

. In 2011, Edgar Morin and

returned to Frontiers of Thought's stage, with them, Fredric Jameson, Garry Kasparov, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Orhan Pamuk and Shirin Ebadi. Among the 2012 edition lecturers were the Nobel Peace Prize Mohamed ElBaradei, from Egypt, and Nobel Economy Prize Winner Amartya Sen, from India. Also, Mozambican writer Mia Couto, Colombian urbanist

Enrique Peñalosa Enrique Peñalosa Londoño (born 30 September 1954) is a Colombian politician. He was mayor of Bogotá from 1998 until 2001 and elected again in 2015 for the 2016–2019 term. He was prominently featured in the Panama Papers for use of off-sho ...

and British philosopher Simon Blackburn, among others such as Vandana Shiva and

Susan Greenfield Susan Adele Greenfield, Baroness Greenfield, (born 1 October 1950) is an English scientist, writer, broadcaster and member of the House of Lords (since 2001). Her research has focused on the treatment of Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's dise ...

. In 2013, under the theme "Ideas make a difference", the project had 24 guests. Among them, Portuguese neuroscientist

António Damásio Antonio Damasio ( pt, António Damásio) is a Portuguese-American neuroscientist. He is currently the David Dornsife Chair in Neuroscience, as well as Professor of Psychology, Philosophy, and Neurology, at the University of Southern California, ...

, Nobel Peace Prize winner José Ramos-Horta and the Spanish sociologist Manuel Castells. In 2014, discussing the theme "The reinvention of the world", Frontiers of Thought invited Salman Rushdie,

Gro Brundtland Gro Brundtland (; born Gro Harlem, 20 April 1939) is a Norwegian politician (Arbeiderpartiet), who served three terms as the 29th prime minister of Norway (1981, 1986–89, and 1990–96) and as the director-general of the World Health Organizati ...

, Brian Greene,

Michael Sandel Michael Joseph Sandel (; born March 5, 1953) is an American political philosophy, political philosopher and the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government Theory at Harvard University Law School, where his course Justice was the unive ...

, and others. The 2015 edition features the theme "How to live together", and guests

Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. An ath ...

Jimmy Wales Jimmy Donal Wales (born August 7, 1966), also known on Wikipedia by the pseudonym Jimbo, is an American-British Internet entrepreneur, webmaster, and former financial trader. He is a co-founder of the online non-profit encyclopedia Wikipedi ...

, Fernando Savater, John Gray,

Saskia Sassen Saskia Sassen (born January 5, 1947) is a Dutch-American sociologist noted for her analyses of globalization and international human migration. She is Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology at Columbia University in New York City, and Centennial ...

, Richard Sennett,

Valter Hugo Mãe Valter is a spelling variant of the German name ''Walter'', ''Walther'', from Old High German ''walt'' "rule" and ''her'' "army". The spelling variant in ''V-'' is adopted in a number of European languages, including Scandinavian (North Germanic) ...

Suzana Herculano-Houzel Suzana Herculano-Houzel (born 1972) is a Brazilian neuroscientist. Her main field of work is comparative neuroanatomy; her findings include a method of counting of neurons of human and other animals' brains and the relation between the cerebral co ...

Janette Sadik-Khan Janette Sadik-Khan (born April 28, 1961) is a former commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation (2007–2013) and an advisor on transportation and urban issues. She works for Bloomberg Associates, a philanthropic consultancy es ...

Ferreira Gullar José Ribamar Ferreira (September 10, 1930 – December 4, 2016), known by his pen name Ferreira Gullar, was a Brazilian poet, playwright, essayist, art critic, and television writer. In 1959, he was instrumental in the formation of the Neo-Concre ...

, Camille Paglia,

Joseph Stiglitz Joseph Eugene Stiglitz (; born February 9, 1943) is an American New Keynesian economist, a public policy analyst, and a full professor at Columbia University. He is a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2001) and the Joh ...

, Contardo Calligaris,

, Manuel Castells,

Pierre Lévy Pierre Lévy (; born 1956) is a Tunisian-born French philosopher, cultural theorist and media scholar who specializes in the understanding of the cultural and cognitive implications of digital technologies and the phenomenon of human collective ...

and John Elkington, touring the four cities that host the project – not all cities will have the same lecturers.

Formats

Fronteiras do Pensamento has two different formats: annual seasons and special series. The annual seasons take place in Porto Alegre and São Paulo, Brazil, during the whole year. In both cities, the audience buys tickets for all lectures. The special series take place in Florianópolis and Salvador, in specific times, and tickets can be bought for a single event.

References

{{reflist

External links

Frontiers of Thought official website

Frontiers of Thought official YouTube channel

Frontiers of Thought on Facebook
Cultural conferences Conferences in Brazil