Veranstaltungsarchiv Thomas Mann House

Juli 2026

How Religion Shapes Society

09.07.2026

Thomas Mann House (1550 N San Remo Drive, CA 90272)

Sprache: Englisch ・ Auf Einladung

Info

Join us in the living room of the Thomas Mann House for a conversation between 2026 Thomas Mann Fellow Michael Seewald, Professor of Dogmatics and History of Dogma, and renowned sociologist Sanyu A. Mojola, Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University. During his Fellowship at the Thomas Mann House, Seewald examines the changing attitude of U.S. Catholicism towards a liberal social order and whether theology has the power to shape church and society, or whether it is merely a variable that depends on political convictions and adapts to changing ideological forms.

Religion finds itself in a paradoxical situation. On the one hand, there is a quantitative decline in religiosity in most Western countries, including the United States. On the other hand, religion is politically more powerful today than it has been for decades. How can this disparity be explained? What does it mean for the way in which contemporary society is shaped by religious ideas, for better or worse? And what role can religion play in the processes of social change we are facing? Michael Seewald, Thomas Mann Fellow 2026 and a Catholic theologian from the University of Munich, discusses these issues with Sanyu A. Mojola, a sociologist from Princeton University.

Teilnehmer:innen

Sanyu A. Mojola

Sanyu A. Mojola is Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs and the Maurice P. During Professor of Demographic Studies at Princeton University. She has held numerous fellowships, including at Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. In 2016, she received the Distinguished Scholarly Book Award (Best Book of the Year) of the American Sociological Association. Her most recent book is entitled “Death by Design: Producing Racial Health Inequality in the Shadow of the Capitol” (University of California Press, 2025).

Michael Seewald

Photo Credit: Uni Münster Richard Sliwka

Michael Seewald holds the Chair of Dogmatics and the History of Dogma at the University of Munich, and is a Permanent Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study (Wissenschaftskolleg) in Berlin. His books have been translated into 11 languages. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Gottfried Leibniz Prize, one of the most prestigious and highest-endowed research awards worldwide. His most recent book is entitled “Theories of Doctrinal Development in the Catholic Church” (Cambridge University Press, 2023). Seewald is a 2026 Fellow at the Thomas Mann House Los Angeles.

Breaking the Silence

16.07.2026 19:00

Thomas Mann House (1550 N San Remo Drive, CA 90272)

Sprache: Englisch ・ Auf Einladung

Info

Join us in the living room of the Thomas Mann House for a literary recital and musical performance curated by 2026 Thomas Mann Fellow & author Margaryta Surzhenko. The evening will explore the relationship between silence, war, memory, and the struggle to regain one’s voice after trauma. Blending poetic prose with autobiographical storytelling, and accompanied by live music by acclaimed pianist Luis RosaLebron and violinist Andrew Krastins, the evening asks what it means to speak when silence can feel both comforting and dangerous.

During her time in Los Angeles, Margaryta Surzhenko reflects on her experiences with the war in Ukraine and the peculiarities of life in multicultural Germany, adding a transatlantic perspective. She processes these thoughts in prose form, focusing on advocating democratic values and a culture of communication that connects people. Surzhenko will read from previously unpublished new work, accompanied by original music composed by RosaLebron and Krastins in response to her literary texts and performed on Thomas Mann’s historic Faustus piano. Acquired during Mann’s exile from Germany in the 1940s, the instrument serves as a material reminder of displacement and artistic resilience, creating a meaningful connection between different experiences of war, exile, and the enduring power of art to foster healing and connection in times of crisis.

Teilnehmer:innen

Margaryta Surzhenko

Margaryta Surzhenko is a writer. She graduated from the Interregional Academy of Personnel Management (IAPM) in Kyiv in 2012 with a degree in political science and published her first book about the war in Luhansk in 2014. In 2015, she founded a website featuring innovative fairy tales, which brings together more than 300 texts. Margaryta Surzhenko has published five novels. Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, she has been living in Germany and teaching creative writing. During her time in Los Angeles, Margaryta Surzhenko reflects on her experiences with the war in Ukraine and the peculiarities of life in multicultural Germany, adding a transatlantic perspective. She processes these thoughts in prose form, focusing on advocating democratic values and a culture of communication that connects people. Surzhenko is a 2026 Thomas Mann Fellow.

Luis RosaLebron

Luis RosaLebron is a composer, pianist, piano historian, and restorer of historic instruments, born in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, into a family of amateur musicians and music lovers. From an early age, he understood music as an essential part of life. An avid collector of fine instruments and music-related memorabilia, his work bridges performance, scholarship, and craftsmanship. In addition to composing, he coaches college-level music students in score reading and interpretation, with a strong commitment to engaging directly with the composer’s original intentions. His musical language draws on classical, Caribbean, jazz, and folk influences, often favoring short, accessible miniatures that condense rich emotional and harmonic worlds. A violist as well as pianist, RosaLebron is known for his inventive compositional voice, which explores emotional ambiguity, suspended atmospheres, and the expressive possibilities of harmonic tension.

Andrew Krastins

Andrew Krastins is a violinist, music historian and internationally recognized expert on early classical sound recordings 1889-1900. Mr. Krastins’ key discoveries include the unique recorded legacy by Camillo Sivori, the only pupil of Niccolo Paganini; these wax cylinders are the earliest known recordings by a violinist of complete classical works. His research has been published by the British Library and other sources. Based in Los Angeles, he has a longstanding interest in American cultural history, particularly the classical and vernacular musical traditions of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Recognizing the historical preciousness of ephemeral objects, Mr. Krastins is a careful custodian of rare musical scores, sound recordings, and unique manuscript materials central to his research. Mr. Krastins takes a special interest in the musical history of Los Angeles in all its variety, from the 19th century through the arrival of European musicians, composers and other intellectuals fleeing European oppression in the 1930s and onward. His musical interests reflect a broader fascination with the relationship between music, memory and the local cultural habitats in which music was created. His performances are marked by a deep sensitivity to musical storytelling and historical context, making him an especially compelling collaborator in programs that connect literature, history, and live performance.