The Adeje Summer University continues with its course schedule and this morning, Wednesday, July 19, it has begun a meeting that will revolve around the world of wine tourism which is mainly based in the Canary Islands. This event, which will run until next Friday the 21st, aims to introduce students to this rapidly growing sector, as well as to highlight the importance of oenology within the tourism industry at both the local and national levels.
This course will feature a professor from the University of La Laguna Miguel Ángel Mejías As director, he has begun by taking a historical look at this subject, which intertwines the agricultural world on the one hand and the tourism world on the other. This combination, in which wineries emerge as spaces for leisure through different activities and ultimately contribute to tourism, establishes itself as the best starting point for delving into the importance that wine has had in different societies throughout the centuries.
“The essence of tourism is always the landscape. It doesn't matter if it's a beach, mountains, hills, a city, or anything else,” Mejías pointed out. Another section of the course will focus precisely on this aspect: wine tourism is not only based on the final product, wine in this case, but also on the vineyards themselves, which create a type of landscape that is attractive to visitors.
“Of the eight islands that make up the archipelago, in seven of them we can enjoy wine varieties that are located in different areas, whether on the coast, in the midlands or even in the highlands,” a situation that, as the professor indicated, provides a richness that characterizes the Canary Islands over other regions.
The role of women will be a central theme of these conferences, which will be conducted from a gender perspective and will analyze the female presence in wine culture, to which it has been closely linked since its beginnings. The professor from the University of La Laguna Royal Carolina She will be responsible for providing this vision, which currently translates into the fact that in the Canary Islands, according to data from the Chair of Agrotourism and Enotourism developed at this teaching center, a large part of the initiatives that link oenology with tourism arise from women linked to a winery.
New directions in Artificial Intelligence
No. The Artificial intelligence It's not going to wipe communication professionals off the map. The professor is quite emphatic about this. Dolores Meneses Fernández, co-director of the course of the Adeje Summer University Dedicated to this topic that is generating so much discussion, along with expert Munir Jojo Verge. “We will have to reinvent ourselves, be in constant training, and analyze what generative AI can offer journalists,” Meneses affirms.
The expert then emphasized that this technology needs to be understood not only by journalists but also by professionals in other fields because the change will be enormous. However, she maintained that the machine lacks reasoning and is incapable of making judgments, although it can make decisions. In any case, she warned, journalists must verify all content created or pre-created using Artificial Intelligence.
The aim of this proposal from the Adeje Summer University is for professionals to be able to identify the consistency of the application of AI in areas such as social communication, understand its consequences in journalism and in the very creation of content of all kinds, while also pursuing an approach to how algorithms work to generate journalistic content.
“It’s crucial to question who’s behind it, to know the origin of the databases used as sources—an issue that various European bodies are warning about: the need for ethics and transparency in these types of tools,» she adds. Dolores Meneses points out that AI invents content when it doesn’t have it, because these are machines trained to respond. All the available tools on this subject contain biases, which are important to note. “In fact, the machine considers itself male,” the professor asserts.
Active participation, the central focus of the Canary Islands Chamber Orchestra course
The course “Musical Interpretation with the Canary Islands Chamber Orchestra” is directed by Almudena González Brito, Professor in the Department of Art History and Philosophy at the University of La Laguna and taught by Patricio Gutiérrez, director of the Canary Islands Chamber Orchestra and professional violinist, as well as by the orchestra members María del Carmen Jiménez and Juan Pablo Alemán, professional violinist and cellist.
The main objective of this seminar is the transfer of musical knowledge from the faculty to the participating students. It aims to equip students with specific knowledge applicable to musical performance and to foster a critical perspective. Furthermore, another objective is to acquire knowledge of essential aspects of musical performance from three perspectives: the solo performer, the chamber musician, and the orchestral performer.
The methodology employed is primarily practical and based on the principle of active participation, involving students in their learning process through the practice of musical performance. Debates and critical thinking are also encouraged, fostering interaction between teachers and students.
“This course is based on practical experience, and the instructors are active professional musicians, so they can show students what musical performance is all about from a personal perspective. We believe the seminar breaks with traditional models because it directly transfers the teachers' experiences to the students,” says González Brito.
Emotional development linked to music
Another proposal from the Adeje Summer University connects music, body expression, and emotional development, These aspects are closely linked. Directed by Pilar Gil Frías, From the Department of Specific Didactics, this course is designed for students and professionals linked to education and its objective is to approach musical education from the sound experience.
“It’s about experiencing firsthand the relationship between the body and emotions,” says its director, who adds that the goal isn’t to create a final product, but rather to carry out small exercises that help us understand the emotions we experience. “Our brain is developed to process all musical information in such a way that the sensations music produces are inherent to human beings,» she explains.
The course aims to develop emotional skills through artistic expression, while also exploring and experiencing the expressive possibilities of the voice, body, and sounds as a means of emotional communication. "Emotions are a natural reaction that manifests in the body and are part of our nature," the expert continues. Thus, music stimulates the parts of the brain linked to emotions, and the goal is to become aware of this.
Spanish 
English 
French