2026

Andreas Mayer is a historian of science and research professor at the CNRS affiliated to the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. In 2025-2026 he serves as the Dornsife/EHESS visiting professor at the University of Southern California. He has received many awards and fellowships (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, 2019-2020; Villa I Tatti, Florence, 2024-2025) and has published extensively on the history of the human sciences and of psychoanalysis, most notably, Dreaming by the Book: Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams and the History of the Psychoanalytic Movement (with Lydia Marinelli, New York, 2003), Sites of the Unconscious: Hypnosis and the Emergence of the Psychoanalytic Setting (Chicago, 2013), and The Science of Walking. Investigations Into Locomotion in the Long Nineteenth Century (Chicago, 2020). His most recent book is entitled Freud gegen den Strich (Berlin, 2026). Photo: Andreas Mayer.

Adrian Daub is a professor of comparative literature and German studies at Stanford University, and the director of Stanford’s Program in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. His research focuses on the intersection of literature, music, and philosophy in the nineteenth century, and he is the author of several books published by academic presses. His writing has appeared in The Guardian, The New Republic, n+1, Longreads, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. Among his most recent book are The Cancel Culture Panic: How an American Obsession Went Global (Stanford University Press, 2024) and What Tech Calls Thinking: An Inquiry into the Intellectual Bedrock of Silicon Valley (FSG Originals x Logic, 2020).

Zhanna Kadyrova (b.1981, Brovary, Ukraine) is an interdisciplinary artist and member of “R.E.P.” group (Revolution Experimental Space). After graduating from the Taras Shevchenko State Art School in 1999, she received the Kazimir Malevich Artist Award and the Grand Prix of the Kyiv Sculpture Project (both 2012). She was awarded the Special Prize (2011), Main Prize (2013), and Special Prize – Future Generation International (2014), all from PinchukArtCentre.

Kadyrova’s practice engages various disciplines including sculpture, photo, video, and performance. In her work, the issue of context unravels to reveal the rhythm of History on the move - that of a world whose multiple layers disappear behind their immediacy. Often diverting the aesthetic canons of the socialist ideal still present in the heritage of contemporary Ukraine, Kadyrova’s perspective is partially informed by the plastic and symbolic values of urban building materials. Thus ceramics, glass, stone, and concrete enter the spotlight of her work.

Asha Bukojemsky is an independent curator and public programmer based in Los Angeles. Since 2017 she has produced Marathon Screenings, and in 2022 she initiated Kyiv to LA in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. She has worked for a range of organisations including the Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles; The Photographers’ Gallery, London, UK; PHI Foundation for Contemporary Art, Montreal (formerly DHC/ART), and currently holds the position of Senior Art Program Specialist at LA Metro.

Oliver Polak is a stand-up comedian and writer. Half-German, half-Russian and Jewish: he certainly has all the ingredients needed for a third world war.

Oliver Polak’s fellowship project at the Thomas Mann House is titled "Stand Up For Comedy Across Borders." He aims to develop a show for comedy clubs in Los Angeles. In this show, he intends to make himself the subject, share his story, and perform his narrative night after night. Through his stand-up, Oliver seeks to engage in meaningful dialogue with Americans and challenge prejudices—including his own. He aims to explore both the humorous similarities and differences between cultures. His observations, reflections, and dialogues, along with the ups and downs of his journey, will be recorded like a diary, forming an experiential account that can lead to deeper insights.

Lauren Goshinski is a curator, cultural producer, DJ, and the Executive Director of dublab, the Los Angeles–based nonprofit radio station and arts platform broadcasting independent music and culture worldwide for over 26 years. Her work spans festivals, public programs, and site-responsive projects that connect artists, DJs, technologists, and communities across nightlife, sound art, and experimental music scenes. With a background shaping international programs such as VIA Festival and New Forms Festival, Goshinski advocates for music and “musicking” as a form of civic infrastructure—an approach that positions sound cultures as vital connective systems linking people, places, and cultural networks across cities and borders.

Thomas Meinecke is a writer, musician, and DJ based between Munich and in Marseille. Since 1986 he has published numerous acclaimed novels with Suhrkamp Verlag, most recently Odenwald (2024). In parallel to his literary work, he co-founded the influential German post-punk experimental band F.S.K. in 1980, whose albums have appeared since 2008 on Daniel Richter’s label Buback, most recently Topsy Turvy (2023). Among many other creative endeavors, Meinecke has collaborated on electronic music projects with influential German electronic music producer Move D. and worked extensively as a radio host and club DJ, performing in iconic venues such as Berghain, Robert Johnson, and Pudel Club. His interdisciplinary practice extends into curatorial and academic contexts, including the long-running discussion series Plattenspieler in Berlin and teaching appointments and residencies at universities in Europe and the United States. He received the Berlin Literature Prize in 2020.

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).

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.

Uwe Jean Heuser studied economics in Bonn and Berkeley, earned a Master of Public Administration at Harvard as a McCloy Scholar, and completed his doctorate in Cologne. He joined the editorial team of DIE ZEIT at the end of 1991, where he founded the Reform Workshop and headed the business editorial team for 20 years before founding the newspaper’s new “Green” section in 2021. He is an award-winning non-fiction author and serves as an honorary professor at Leuphana University. At the Thomas Mann House, Uwe Jean Heuser will deal with the climate discourse, which is highly ideologized and often ends in conflict instead of uniting society. Both in Germany and the United States, he will look for new transatlantic approaches that can create the basis for a new narrative for climate change that reaches a larger number of people.

Grégoire Roos has been Director for Europe and Russia at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) since fall 2025. Previously, he was Head of Political Dialogue and Political Innovation at the BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt. In this role, he has built up the BMW Foundation’s political dialogue and practice for political innovation and advanced the Foundation’s work on climate issues. Grégoire Roos is passionate about art and is a member of the Board of Trustees of the non-profit organization International Arts & Artists (USA). Grégoire Roos is also a (non-resident) fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. Grégoire Roos studies the transformative impact of coalitions of public, private and philanthropic actors. These public-private-philanthropic partnerships (PPPPs) are relatively advanced in the United States, especially in California. His focus is on the possibilities of creating a political discourse based on science and art.