"At Home Abroad"
Info
As we did last year, we invite you, together with Beethoven Fest Bonn, to a panel discussion.
In the former home of Thomas Mann in Los Angeles, German intellectuals come together as Fellows. The experiences of historical exile that shape this place, together with current debates about migration and spiritual homeland, serve as the context for a panel discussion.
As a historical backdrop, the panelists draw on Thomas Mann's history of exile, who, like many other German artists, found refuge in the USA during the time of National Socialism. While some struggled to gain a foothold there, he was among those who successfully continued their work. First from Princeton, later from Pacific Palisades, he observed the dramatic political developments in Germany and Europe and took a public and resolute stand against the Nazi regime. At the same time, he told an American journalist: "Germany is where I am! I carry my culture within me and do not consider myself a fallen man." While he praised the USA under Roosevelt as a country of democracy and freedom, he himself felt the increasingly distrustful political climate, and during the McCarthy era he came under suspicion of communism. Soon afterward he returned to Europe and spent his final years in Switzerland.
In cooperation with the Beethovenfest Bonn.
*This event will be held in German*
Participants
Susanne Beyer studied German literature, history and journalism in Bamberg and Vienna. After her vocational training at Deutsche Journalistenschule (DJS), she initially worked as a culture editor at SPIEGEL, where she was deputy head of department. She was deputy editor-in-chief of SPIEGEL for four years, then worked as a journalist in SPIEGEL's Berlin office and now writes for the editorial team. Alongside her job, Susanne Beyer is currently training to become a mediator.
Ciani-Sophia Hoeder is a journalist and author from Berlin. She studied journalism and politics in Berlin and London. In 2019, she founded the online magazine RosaMag, which addresses a variety of challenges faced by Black individuals in German-speaking countries. In her work, Hoeder celebrates Blackness rather than problematizing it. In 2020, RosaMag was nominated for the Grimme Online Award, and in 2021, Hoeder received the Golden Blogger Award. Her debut book Wut & Böse was published with hanserblau in 2021, and her most recent book Vom Tellerwäscher zum Tellerwäscher was released in 2024. She is a 2024 Thomas Mann Fellow.
Kai Hinrich Müller, 2023 Thomas Mann Fellow, studied musicology, business administration and law at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn and received his doctorate in 2013 with a thesis on the history of the early music movement. His habilitation followed in 2022. In his research, he deals with Richard Wagner and his reception in the Bayreuth circle as well as the so-called völkische Bewegung (nationalist movement), forms of anti-Semitism in music history, musical life in the interwar and especially Nazi period, as well as transatlantic opera history with a special focus on U.S. exile. He teaches at the Cologne University of Music and Dance, directs projects in Germany and abroad, and is the academic and artistic director of the Terezín Music Academy in the former Theresienstadt ghetto and the Bauhaus Music Weekend.
Andreas Platthaus is a German journalist and author based in Leipzig and Frankfurt (Main). He studied economics and rhetorics, philosophy, and history in Aachen and Tübingen. He is vice directing editor of the cultural section, as well as editor for literature at the German daily newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. In 2018, he received a Thomas Mann Fellowship and he is the author of multiple books, including “Der Krieg nach dem Krieg — Deutschland zwischen Revolution und Versailles 1918/19” (Rowohlt, 2018).
Program
Thomas Mann Fellows in conversation about belonging, identity, and working in a foreign country
Music: Members of Alarm Will Sound
Partner
Villa Aurora & Thomas Mann House e. V. is funded by the Federal Foreign Office and the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.
