Dr. David Jou
David Jou, professor of Condensed Matter Physics at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and full academician and president of the Experimental Sciences Section of the Royal European Academy of Doctors-Barcelona 1914 (RAED), has been appointed new president of the Joan Maragall Foundation, a space for reflection and debate on the situation of Christianity founded in 1989. Member of its Board of Trustees since 1993, Jou replaces Josep Maria Carbonell, who has served two terms at the head of this institution. The new appointment was approved by acclamation for the Board.
The entity reiterates in this new stage its “willingness for the dialogue between Christianity and culture to influence fundamental issues of the human being, which are narrated with very diverse tools for all religions and for all cultures”, according to the statement made public to announce the relay in its presidency. And it affects its commitment to remain “a space for dialogue, debate, reflection and, as far as possible, for the creation of thought. The Foundation also begins its 30th year and the new presidency with the conviction to make our cultural environment richer, more open and dynamic”.
After his election, Jou said that he will work from his new responsibility to increase the visibility of this institution making it a cultural and Christian reference, meeting and reflection. “We would like to continue growing and continue to build a reference space, which is manifested in the heart of Barcelona”, he said. In the same way, the Joan Maragall Foundation intends to strengthen ties with other European Christian cultural centers in this new period, such as the College of the Bernardines in Paris or the Saint Fidelis Cultural Center in Milan, as well as the Dicastery to the Culture of the Vatican, an organism with which it collaborates for years. The Foundation is part of the Pax Romana International Movement of Catholic Intellectuals, another of its focus of attention under the new presidency.
“We must influence the generational transmission of the cultural side of Christianity. We must reinforce this line, studying well how to make present the cultural value of Christianity to new generations that have already grown in a secularized society and where religious education is already there, usually absent”, said the new president. For this, the Foundation will strengthen its presence in the field of the digital world and maintain its commitment to its collections “Cristianisme i Cultura” (Christianity and Culture), “Quaderns de la Fundació Joan Maragall” (Notebooks of the Joan Maragall Foundation) and the magazine “Qüestions de Vida Cristiana” (Christian life issues).
Jou has dedicated a large part of his essays to study new relationships between science and humanism and has deepened especially in the relationships between science and faith. In this field he has published books such as “Déu, cosmos, caos. (Horitzó del diàleg entre ciència religió)” (God, cosmos, chaos. (Horizon of the dialogue between science and religion)), “Poesia de l’infinit. (Ciència i mística)” (Poetry of the infinite. (Science and mysticism)), “Reescribiendo el Génesis. (De la gloria de Dios al sabotaje del universo)” (Rewriting Genesis. (From the glory of God to sabotage of the universe)), o “Cerebro y universo. (Dos cosmologías)” (Brain and universe. (Two cosmologies)), in addition to the poems “Poemes sobre ciència i fe” (Poems about science and faith) and “La mística dels dies” (The mystique of the days).
