In the lectures given at Oxford in 1938, Karl Mannheim anticipated one of the tensions most urgent of our time: the conflict between plainsfidemocratic cation and individualism authoritarian. Mannheim warned that a democratic society can only be sustained if it succeeds in cultivating democratic personalities: individuals capable of exercising freedom without severing social bonds. In contrast to the promises of liberalism and the technocratic drift of psychology, his proposal advocates for an alliance between sociology and psychology to understand how subjectivities are shaped in times of uncertainty and structural transformation. These intense, insightful, even radical lectures have acquired unexpected relevance today. In a present marked by polarization, social antagonisms, and the return of wars and authoritarianism, the preoccupation with the brand of the self or emotional management reveals more than just a passing fad: it constitutes the symptom of a subjectivity trapped in its own reflection. Against this confinement, Mannheim invites us to envision the future through cooperation, deliberation, and the urgent need to forge personalities of a profoundly democratic character. 

Karl Mannheim (Budapest, 1893 – London, 1947) was one of the great sociologists of the 20th century and a fiA central figure in the emergence of the sociology of knowledge. In his youth, he actively participated in intellectual circles in Budapest.After the fall of the Soviet Republic in 1919, he went into exile in Heidelberg, where he became associated with the thought of Max Weber. During these years he published Ideology and utopia (1929), a key work that opened the field of the sociology of knowledge and placed it in critical dialogue with the Marxist tradition of Lukács. With the rise of Nazism in 1933, he was forced into exile again, this time in England, where He focused his work on analyzing the European crisis, social reconstruction, and advocating for democratic reformism centered on the welfare state..  

This meeting is being held to mark the publication of Conferences From Oxford. The planned society and the problem of human personality by DADO Ediciones, a critical edition that presents these texts for the first time as a contextualized and commented set, recovering a key thought to rethink our societies in crisis. The book features a translation and editing by Fat Angel y Fernando Álvarez-Uría, and with a extensive epilogue by the latter to contextualize Mannheim's works. Both are participating in the event, along with Mario Dominguez y Carolina Bescansa.