When Fear Rules: The Challenges of Democracy in the 21st Century

Direction: Francisco J. Leira Castiñeira, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid

Location: Room 2.A.01. Madrid Campus – Puerta de Toledo.

Target Audience

To students of the humanities and social sciences, as well as those from other branches of knowledge interested in current political reality. Likewise, to the entire research community, as the course seeks to foster dialogue and debate with attendees, particularly during the round tables. It is a course that emphasizes interaction with all participants.

Speakers

Director: Francisco J. Leira Castiñeira, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Enlace a Currículum.
Ponentes:

Fernando Vallespín, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.
Pablo Simón Cosano, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.
Cristina Monge. Universidad de Zaragoza.
María José Fariñas, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.
Aleksandra Sojka, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.
Francisco J. Leira Castiñeira, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.
Óscar Camps, presidente de la ONG Open Arms (da testimonio por videollamada).
Sofía Rodríguez López, Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
Antonio Cazorla, Trent University, Canadá.
Sophie Baby, Universidad de Bourgogne Europe.

Program

Monday, June 22nd: The Far Right and the Crisis of Democracies
10:00 AM – 12:00 PM. The Return of Authoritarianism: The Far Right and the Collapse of the Liberal Order. Fernando Vallespín, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.
12:00 PM – 12:30 PM. Break.
12:30 PM – 2:30 PM. Why is the Far Right Growing Today? Pablo Simón Cosano, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.

Tuesday, June 23rd: Defending Human Rights and Democracy
10:00 AM – 12:00 PM. Against Discontent: Towards an Alliance to Build Desirable Futures. Cristina Monge, Universidad de Zaragoza.
12:00 PM – 12:30 PM. Break.
12:30 PM – 2:30 PM. The Anti-Rights Rhetoric of the New Far Right. María José Fariñas, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.

Wednesday, June 24th: Armed Conflicts and Humanitarian Crisis
10:00 AM – 12:00 PM. United by Fear? The Dilemma of European Security and Its New Political Divides. Aleksandra Sojka, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.
12:00 PM – 12:30 PM. Break.
12:30 PM – 2:00 PM. War and Peace: A Theoretical Perspective from History. Francisco J. Leira Castiñeira, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.
2:00 PM – 2:30 PM. Humanitarian Aid in the Face of the Current Crisis. Óscar Camps, President of the NGO Open Arms (Testimony via video call).

Thursday, June 25th: Memory and Democracy
10:00 AM – 12:00 PM. Fear of War? Women, Revolution, and Armed Conflicts. Sofía Rodríguez López, Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
12:00 PM – 12:30 PM. Break.
12:30 PM – 2:30 PM. Trauma, Memory, Politics, and Society. Antonio Cazorla, Trent University, Canada.

Friday, June 26th: Memory of Traumatic Pasts and Democracy
10:00 AM – 12:00 PM. Memory, Impunity, and Denialism. Sophie Baby, University of Burgundy.
12:00 PM – 12:30 PM. Break.
12:30 PM – 2:30 PM. Round Table: Memory of Traumatic Pasts and Democracy. Antonio Cazorla (Trent University) and Sophie Baby (University of Burgundy).
Modera y clausura, Francisco Leira, director del curso.

Course Objectives and Motivations

The course analyzes the contemporary rise of the far right as a structural and long-standing phenomenon, closely linked to the profound transformations of liberal democracies, the reconfiguration of armed conflicts, and the crisis of the international system. Moving beyond simplistic or purely electoral interpretations, the program proposes understanding the far right as an organized political response to complex processes of social insecurity, democratic disaffection, cultural polarization, and the weakening of the multilateral order. From this perspective, the course pays special attention to the historical, social, cultural, and emotional roots of contemporary authoritarianism, highlighting the central role of fear, resentment, and the perceived loss of control as vectors for political mobilization.
The interdisciplinary analysis revolves around the concrete effects of these dynamics on contemporary warfare and violence, forced migration and border policies, international solidarity, and the functioning of humanitarian action, as well as on the democratic quality of states and international institutions themselves. It examines how the far right not only feeds on armed conflicts and humanitarian crises but also actively contributes to redefining their interpretive frameworks—prioritizing victims, normalizing exclusion, and placing strain on the fundamental principles of international law and human rights. In this way, the course adopts a transversal perspective that connects domestic and international politics, political culture, and global governance.
The structure of the course—consisting of a round table and a keynote lecture each day—is designed to combine pluralistic debate and interdisciplinary contrast with conceptual and analytical synthesis, integrating contributions from political science, sociology, philosophy, and history. Finally, the course has a clearly proactive objective: not only to explain the logics of the present but also to think of realistic responses to the advance of authoritarianism, identifying margins of action for democracy, humanitarian action, and civil society. Participants are thus invited to reflect on how to sustain democratic coexistence and international cooperation in a context marked by polarization, violence, and the instrumentalization of fear.

Upon completing the course, students will realize that the most emblematic value of the classical world is not the elitist character of its education or a particular monumental aesthetic (to cite two typical categories of the interpretation given throughout the 19th century), but rather the capacity to thematize every human problem, transforming it into a source of personal and collective teaching, fruitful and always enriching. From this experience, capable of converting the intimate drama of existence into a rational theme (thus allowing the birth of philosophy and Attic tragedy), or the difficulties of community life into political reflection, or the imitation of nature into art and technique, emerges that freedom of spirit that permeates all humanisms throughout history and that remains one of the priority ideals of the contemporary world.

Furthermore, the classical tradition is much closer to the paradigms of digital culture than one might imagine: if the “digital humanities” constitute in a certain way a form of re-imagining the traditional humanities, rethinking the development of the human being in relation to their history and culture through new possibilities for creating and disseminating knowledge, it is well known that the legacy of Greco-Roman civilization has been performing this same task for centuries, updating itself in each era, according to the urgencies of the societies that return to study Antiquity, to find in it answers about their own time.

CURRICULUM

Direcction: Francisco Leira

Francisco Leira is a Ramón y Cajal Research Professor at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M). He holds a PhD in History from the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela (USC). He was awarded the 2019 Miguel Artola Prize, a distinction granted annually by the Association of Contemporary History and the Center for Political and Constitutional Studies.
He also holds a BA in History, an MA in Contemporary History from USC, and an MA in Archival and Information Science from the Universidade da Coruña. He has been a Visiting Fellow at University College Dublin and the Universitat de València. His accolades include the Juana de Vega Social Sciences Prize, an honorable mention in the George Watt Essay Contest (ALBA-VALB, New York, 2012), and a runner-up award for the Javier Tusell Prize from the Association of Historians of the Present in 2021.
His published works include, among other books:
Soldados de Franco (Siglo XXI España, 2020; translated into English in 2023).
Los Nadies de la Guerra de España (Akal, 2022).
Retrato de la Transición: La memoria que escondimos en el desván (Siglo XXI España, 2026).
He is also the author of numerous research articles and the coordinator of six monographs.

Teaching Team

The teaching team for the course “The Classical World in the Digital Era: New Challenges” consists of six people, including the Directors, with equal representation between men and women (3+3). Coming from different but complementary disciplines such as Philology, Law, Archaeology and History, they have all been cooperating for many years, working together on the research lines of the “Lucio Anneo Séneca” Institute of Classical Studies at UC3M. This institute is at the forefront in the Spanish and international sphere in the field of “digital humanities,” developing a series of projects for the online publication of databases and digitization of documents related to the classical world and its survival throughout history. Regarding teaching activity related to the promotion, updating and scientific presentation of various aspects of the classical world, the six course instructors demonstrate a long teaching trajectory, of which the following activities are worth highlighting:

Francisco L. Lisi Bereterbide was for many years coordinator of the Classical Studies area in the Department of Humanities at UC3M and instructor of the undergraduate courses “Classical Culture” and “Transmission of the Classical Legacy” and the graduate course “The Transmission of the Classical Legacy.” Founder and first director of the “Lucio Anneo Séneca” Institute of Classical Studies.

Rosa M. Carreño Sánchez has been teaching, in both Spanish and English, the Humanities Course “Daily Life and Norms in Rome/Daily life and norms in Rome” for more than five years. This course is taught at the Getafe and Colmenarejo Campuses and is offered to students of different nationalities and from the most diverse degree programs (Law, Economics, Business Administration, Computer Engineering, etc.). She has experience in creating digital libraries, having participated in the digitization and publication of the “Antecessores” ancient legal collection of the Library of the Universitat de Girona.

Ana M. Rodríguez González was coordinator of the Conference on Greco-Roman Criminal Law: Crimes and Punishments in Antiquity, organized by the “Lucio Anneo Séneca” Institute of Classical Studies as early as 2008. Since then and to this day, one of the lines of her teaching activity has been dedicated to disseminating how criminal justice was perceived and organized in ancient history. On this topic and others also related to Roman culture, society, and law, she has taught numerous Humanities Courses and has published several didactic works designed to explain these subjects through a careful selection of texts. She has also participated in various research projects aimed at analyzing the relationship between Law and religion in the past of Greece and Rome.