Faculty - Rey Juan Carlos University

Opening Speech

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Our Faculty is very young; does not reach the year of life. Our teaching takes place in the Aranjuez and Madrid-Quintana Campuses, very focused on Fine Arts and in the Campus of Fuenlabrada and Móstoles, more focused on Humanities.

It has been a while since good times have passed for artistic and humanistic teachings. The hyper-technification of our current society, the value that is given to the immediate application of knowledge, sometimes a slightly superficial vision of the concept of "utility", do not favor much appreciation of humanistic knowledge. Sometimes it seems that these ancient knowledges only come to the fore in relation to ephemeris and special occasions. In the year 2022, for example, the five hundredth anniversary of the death of Nebrija. And, during 2023, the five hundredth anniversary of the birth of another distinguished teacher from the University of Salamanca is celebrated, the brocense. I would say that this last celebration is going more inconspicuous. But both one and the other played a fundamental role in the Spanish and European Renaissance. One restored the knowledge of the classical authorities through the return to the latin classics: Knowing the language well was the basis for the renewal of all knowledge. The Brocense marked a new turn in that trajectory, emphasizing the philosophical, rational and universal character of language. That is why his name came to the fore when Chomsky and Lakoff discussed the precedents of modern language theories. His later influence was incredible.

However the Humanities do not live on ephemeris. The profound consequences of the intellectual legacy of these and so many leading figures have more to do with understand the human being, their dignity, their deepest expressions, their limits and the limits that they must know how to impose on their actions. Making this understand is the task of each generation of intellectuals. If the Humanities decay, mere thoughtless dogmatism grows in its place, as a substitute. If Art devalues its scope it is easily content with mere provocation. It is everyone's task, in fact, to ensure that humanistic knowledge does not decline, what Nebrija called, already in Spanish, the "arts of humanity", which make us live, he said, "in this great company that we call the city": there will be no “citizenship” without a humanistic culture and without an aesthetic sense.

I think this is a key question. Of course the new generations of humanists must also focus on applying their knowledge in a thousand different ways, collaborating with colleagues from many other disciplines. But this is just a way of helping research, enriching it and putting it at the service of society in a thousand new ways. Cultivating the Arts and Humanities from the university will create educated professionals. "Culture is what remains when it seems that everything that was learned has been forgotten"said a famous essayist. Let's try not to stop teaching the arts of humanity, that the culture does not wither, that the person does not wither.

Miguel Angel Esparza Torres

Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities