Event archive
2019
Via Lewandowsky: "Good God"
Exhibition of Villa Aurora Fellow Via Lewandowsky's work at the Diözesan museum in Bamberg.
"Introduction: Metaphysics" - Book Launch with Armen Avanessian
Future Metaphysics, a new book by Armen Avanessian, is to be launched not in a single event, but in a series of real, speculative and symbolic “book launches”. The book launches are an ongoing site of recursive encounters between Avanessian and Los Angeles artists and institutions.
Future Metaphysics was originally commisioned as a series of experimental texts corresponding to each room of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art. A series of events now generate from each of the book’s chapters, and unfold across divergent contexts of academic and cultural institutions. LA artists Scarlett Kim, Eric Fanghanel and Parch Es, respond to Avanessian’s activities in the form of microcultural productions: performative strategies, relational scores and media interventions. The collision and intersection between them launches Future Metaphysics, repeatedly and unrelentingly, in a multiplicity of directions.
The series captures not only the proposals of the book but the dynamics of the writing process and institutional logics at play. Avanessian and artists contaminate and alienate each other, abolishing the distinction between theory and practice, and rewriting the terms of the “book launch”. A web of connections extend outward from the book like tendrils of slime that assemble and disassemble contingently: from Germany to the US, from Thomas Mann House to Los Angeles universities, from major institutions to grassroots interventions, and from academic environment to art installation.
This fluid ecology is a continuation of a collaborative practice that blurs philosophy and performance, as seen in the quasi-weekly residency Armen Avanessian & Enemies at the Volksbühne in Berlin, and Perhaps It Is High Time for a Xeno-Architecture to Match, at Brussel’s Kaaitheater, where Avanessian previously worked with Los Angeles artists.
Exhibition becomes book becomes event becomes experience, as Future Metaphysics is embodied in this network of literal and figurative launches.
If you would like to host the site of a microcultural production, email the team at futuremetaphysics@gmail.com.
Seminar: Futuros posibles #1: La verdad es ciencia es ficción
Armen Avanessian leads a seminar at Museo Tamayo in Mexico City.
Farewell Concert & Membership Drive
Jazz pianist Markus Burger is joining Bosnian-born guitarist Almer Imamovic for an acoustic mélange centering around melodies that cross the bridge between music from the Balkan with jazz and European chamber music, creating music, that bridges the gap between two different high cultures.
Right-Wing (Media) Spaces
The United States as well as Europe have seen a return of right-wing tendencies in the political landscape. And this rise of a (new) political right has in turn infected our physical and digital landscapes as well. Philosopher and Thomas Mann Fellow Armen Avanessian invites to an evening of comparative spatial and political interrogation: how are buildings, structures and monuments sites for a political struggle for meaning, myth and hegemony? How did the ‘hinterland’ morph into an ideological fringe? Are new technologies neutral tools, equally wielded on both sides of the isle, or they themselves a cause for populism and polarization? Join him and his guests at Navel on December 6, when they will be hot on the heels of political extremists in Europe, the US, and online.
Lecture by Stefan Keppler-Tasaki: “With the Eyes of a Global Citizen.” Alfred Döblin as “Berliner” and Cosmopolitan
Lecture by Stefan Keppler-Tasaki (Thomas Mann House):
“With the Eyes of a Global Citizen.” Alfred Döblin as “Berliner” and Cosmopolitan
Berlin and China – for Alfred Döblin, these two spheres were intertwined since China, the “monstrous empire,” made the dynamics of the masses accessible to him. Something that seemed important to him in regards to Berlin, a hoard of “monstrous masses,” too. With his description of mass proceedings, Döblin added new aspects to the German epic of the 20th century. The Berlin neurologist made the first attempts against the background of his experiences of the big city, but to the subject-matter of a Chinese civil uprising in the 18th century. From here on, Döblin developed his own proletarian form of cosmopolitanism, with which he sought out and described the masses in the cities of Warsaw, Paris or New York. This lecture deals with the intersection of Döblin’s Berlin images, his cosmographical knowledge and his international experience.
"On: Changing Times" - Book Launch with Armen Avanessian
Future Metaphysics, a new book by Armen Avanessian, is to be launched not in a single event, but in a series of real, speculative and symbolic “book launches”. The book launches are an ongoing site of recursive encounters between Avanessian and Los Angeles artists and institutions.
Future Metaphysics was originally commisioned as a series of experimental texts corresponding to each room of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art. A series of events now generate from each of the book’s chapters, and unfold across divergent contexts of academic and cultural institutions. LA artists Scarlett Kim, Eric Fanghanel and Parch Es, respond to Avanessian’s activities in the form of microcultural productions: performative strategies, relational scores and media interventions. The collision and intersection between them launches Future Metaphysics, repeatedly and unrelentingly, in a multiplicity of directions.
The series captures not only the proposals of the book but the dynamics of the writing process and institutional logics at play. Avanessian and artists contaminate and alienate each other, abolishing the distinction between theory and practice, and rewriting the terms of the “book launch”. A web of connections extend outward from the book like tendrils of slime that assemble and disassemble contingently: from Germany to the US, from Thomas Mann House to Los Angeles universities, from major institutions to grassroots interventions, and from academic environment to art installation.
This fluid ecology is a continuation of a collaborative practice that blurs philosophy and performance, as seen in the quasi-weekly residency Armen Avanessian & Enemies at the Volksbühne in Berlin, and Perhaps It Is High Time for a Xeno-Architecture to Match, at Brussel’s Kaaitheater, where Avanessian previously worked with Los Angeles artists.
Exhibition becomes book becomes event becomes experience, as Future Metaphysics is embodied in this network of literal and figurative launches.
If you would like to host the site of a microcultural production, email the team at futuremetaphysics@gmail.com.
Bringing It All Back Home: Thomas Mann, America, and Democracy
As admirable as Thomas Mann's advocacy for democracy in times of Nazi barbarism doubtlessly is—his concept of democracy remains quite extravagant. Critics have stressed this time and again. What he regards as democracy, they consider from the perspective of practical politics as rather naive. But this critical perception is based on a fundamental misunderstanding. Thomas Mann is primarily interested in democracy as a basic condition for our existence as modern beings. Accordingly, his democratic beliefs are not shaped by political theory, but by literature, namely by Walt Whitman, whose writings and works he had already studied in the 1920s. This finally explains why Mann's political engagement in the USA, at least in general, was highly adaptable. As for his understanding of democracy, he, the émigré, did not enter the United States as a stranger—he came home. Lunch talk with Kai Sina (University of Götting), moderated by David Kim (UCLA).
Kai Sina is a literary scholar at the University of Göttingen. His research focuses on the history of transatlantic literature. In 2017, he published an essay on Susan Sontag and Thomas Mann. It will be followed this year by a book on “Collective Poetry.” Its subject is the relationship between modern literature and the open society. It includes studies on Goethe, Emerson, Whitman and Mann.
Nadine Fecht – Amok
Book presentation and conversation with author Nadine Fecht.
Exhibition Opening: Chris Hood
Exhibition of Berlin Fellow Chris Hood.
VATMH Night 2019
VATMH Night 2019 with Sabine Reinfeld, Maren Kames, Philipp Schönthaler, and many more.
By invitation only
LA Premiere Screening: Artur Schnabel. No Place of Exile - A Film by Matthew Mishory
No Place of Exile ist die filmische Wiederentdeckung eines maßgeblichen Künstlers des 20. Jahrhunders, der von der Katastrophe des Zweiten Weltkrieges und des Holocausts entwurzelt und gleichzeitig von den Möglichkeiten der Moderne inspiriert wurde.
Der Film begleitet den Pianisten und Bewunderer Schnabels, Markus Pawlik, bei den Vorbereitungen zu einem Konzert beim Musikfest Berlin. Ziel ist es, Artur Schnabel zu gedenken und seine wichtigsten Kompositionen nach Deutschland zurückzubringen.
Walls - An International Conference
The 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall provides an opportunity to revisit this landmark historical moment, assess the cultural, political, and social transformations that have taken place since reunification, while simultaneously reflecting on these questions at a time when walls are once again being built and contemporary forms of exclusion, division, and marginalization are in evidence.
Lecture and Panel Discussion: "J. R. Davidson – A California Modernist"
Southern California has been one of the centers of modern architecture. An important but typically overlooked figure was the Berlin-born architect Julius Ralph Davidson. Davidson, who lived in Los Angeles since the beginning of the 1920s, worked in the field of shipbuilding and interior design before he began focusing on architectural projects.
In 1940, Davidson got in touch with author Thomas Mann. Mann spent the previous years of his exile in Princeton but decided to move to Los Angeles with his family. The Manns bought a property in the hills of Pacific Palisades and hired J.R. Davidson to build their house, which was intended to be aligned with the family’s lifestyle as well as their daily routines.
Whereas Davidson’s previous houses were built in an international style, the house on San Remo Drive resembles a moderate modernist design. The interior embodied German bourgeois culture in contrast to the modern white appearance of the house. Journalist Heinrich Wefing noted: “The outside form suggests an adjustment to the new Californian world, while on the inside, you see the attempt to reconstruct, even if only partially, what was lost.”
Panelists include Lilian Pfaff, Davidson scholar, author and curator of the current exhibit at University of California, Santa Barbara “J.R. Davidson: A European Contribution to California Modernism.” She will be joined by Christopher Long, Ph.D. the Martin S. Kermacy Centennial Professorship in Architecture at the University of Texas and Monica Penick, Ph.D. and Associate Professor of Design at the University of Texas. The panel will be moderated by Kenneth Briesch, Ph.D. Associate Professor at the School of Architecture at the University of Southern California.
Triumph of Colors (Triumph der Farben)
This event concludes the 2019 Stefan George Society conference "Poetics of the Reading".
Admission free
Studio-Talk with Berlin Fellow Chris Hood and Drew Hammond
From November 22nd, 2019 to January 18th 2020 Chris Hoods Berlin-paintings will be exhibited at 68projects in Fasanenstraße 68: www.68projects.com
Lecture Tour Frido Mann: "Democracy Will Win" — Toronto
Following in his grandfather's tracks, Frido Mann is going to give lectures in more than a dozen cities in the United States and Canada. He will address the current crises in the American and European democracies and the need for their restoration, on the basis of transatlantic dialogue.
Regener meets Lentz
TEXT+KRITIK at Haus für Poesie - Reading & Talk with Villa Fellow Michael Lentz and Sven Regener, musician and author. Moderated by Stefan Greif, and Jan Wilm, editors of Text+Kritik
55 Voices for Democracy: Francis Fukuyama
Francis Fukuyama launches new series “55 Voices for Democracy”.
Political scientist and political economist Francis Fukuyama will give a talk at the Thomas Mann House, Los Angeles on October 22 at 7PM as the first speaker in the series “55 Voices for Democracy.”
Worlds of Homelessness
Worlds of Homelessness seeks to bring together local and international artists, architects, scholars, and others in an effort to create a platform to share ideas, thoughts and to present their work, as well as examining different ways of engagement with the many questions related to the topic of homelessness.
Lecture Tour Frido Mann: "Democracy Will Win" — San Francisco
Following in his grandfather's tracks, Frido Mann is going to give lectures in more than a dozen cities in the United States and Canada. He will address the current crises in the American and European democracies and the need for their restoration, on the basis of transatlantic dialogue.
Lecture Tour Frido Mann: "Democracy Will Win" — Berkeley
Following in his grandfather's tracks, Frido Mann is going to give lectures in more than a dozen cities in the United States and Canada. He will address the current crises in the American and European democracies and the need for their restoration, on the basis of transatlantic dialogue.
Lecture Tour Frido Mann: "Democracy Will Win" — Long Beach
Following in his grandfather's tracks, Frido Mann is going to give lectures in more than a dozen cities in the United States and Canada. He will address the current crises in the American and European democracies and the need for their restoration, on the basis of transatlantic dialogue.
Goethe’s Homecoming: Thomas Mann’s complete works of Goethe donated to the Thomas Mann House
The Thomas Mann House will accept, in the presence of German Consul General of Los Angeles Stefan Schneider, Thomas Mann’s Weimar edition of Goethe’s works. The volumes return to their original location in Thomas Mann’s former house and are donated by Frederic C. and Sally Tubach. Michaela Ullmann (University of Southern California) will engage Prof. Frederic Tubach (UC Berkeley) in conversation with author and psychologist Prof. Frido Mann and Thomas Mann Fellow Stefan Keppler-Tasaki (University of Tokyo).
Lecture Tour Frido Mann: "Democracy Will Win" — Portland
Following in his grandfather's tracks, Frido Mann is going to give lectures in more than a dozen cities in the United States and Canada. He will address the current crises in the American and European democracies and the need for their restoration, on the basis of transatlantic dialogue.
Seminar with Stefan Keppler-Tasaki: “How Goethe became Japanese”
In 1818, Goethe wrote to his prince, Duke Carl August: “Japan is anywhere that one knows how to create it.” This meant the creation of gardening conditions that would be agreeable to the Japanese plants, which Goethe successfully grew in Weimar. Nearly everything what Europeans believed to know about Japan in the days of Goethe changed fundamentally through the Japanese nation building process during the late 19thand early 20thcentury. In this process, Goethe’s saying became true also insofar as Japan proved to be ‘created’ or ‘re-created,’ especially in Japan itself. The ‘know-how’ for this creation came not the least from Goethe’s life and work. Japanese intellectuals from Mori Ōgai, a founding figure of modern Japan, to Osamu Tezuka, the very creator of the Manga genre, drew intensively from Goethe to establish somewhat a Japanese identity—for national self-esteem as well as for harsh criticism on Japan. Given the prominent suicide motifs in Wertherand Faust, Goethe became a kind of national author particularly to the so called ‘suicide nation’ Japan. Death testimonies of Japanese individuals from the 1890s until the peak of Kamikaze tactics in 1944/45 provide evidence of that.
In the meantime, the close conjunction of Goethe and Japan was facilitated by European intellectuals such as Thomas Mann and Gottfried Benn, whose 1932 essays on Goethe refer to Japan (Mann) resp. to Buddhism (Benn). Mann, whose brother-in-law lived in Japan since 1931, remodeled Goethe in his essay To the Japanese Youth, a Goethe Study(An die japanische Jugend. Eine Goethe-Studie) according to the image of modern Japan. Benn in his essay Goethe and the Natural Sciences(Goethe und die Naturwissenschaften) commented on the frequent reclamation of Goethe’s world view, particularly of his late poetry, for Buddhist thought. Both essays were textbook pieces in the national colleges of Japan in the 1930s and read by the very youth which was made sacrifice their live in the Pacific War.
The above-mentioned scenes of transnational contact with a national purpose deserve a closer look in the framework of Asian German Studies.
"Asynchronocities": Workshop with Armen Avanessian
The complexity of today’s social organization, in which algorithms and big data supersede the primacy of human agency and experience, obliterated our traditional notion of the present as the structuring condition of time. Current speculative concepts such as derivative trading, financial speculation, as well as preemptive politics and personalities suggest that the present is already predetermined by the future. But what does it mean to live and think in a speculative present, ethically but also academically, let’s say as a literary theorist? And how does a non-linear conception of time affect our present-day semantics and politics? Exploring the implications of an asynchronous temporality towards a modern understanding of poetics, ontology and metaphysics, in this open seminar, we will discuss excerpts from Armen Avanessian’s works on temporality.
Lecture Tour Frido Mann: "Democracy Will Win" — Washington D.C.
Following in his grandfather's tracks, Frido Mann is going to give lectures in more than a dozen cities in the United States and Canada. He will address the current crises in the American and European democracies and the need for their restoration, on the basis of transatlantic dialogue.
Lecture Tour Frido Mann: "Democracy Will Win" — Kansas City
Following in his grandfather's tracks, Frido Mann is going to give lectures in more than a dozen cities in the United States and Canada. He will address the current crises in the American and European democracies and the need for their restoration, on the basis of transatlantic dialogue.
Artist Talk with Bettina Pousttchi and Heike Catherina Mertens
On the occasion of her exhibition "In Recent Years" at the Berlinische Galerie, the artist and former Villa Aurora fellow Bettina Pousttchi will be speaking with Heike Catherina Mertens, Executive Director Villa Aurora & Thomas Mann House.
Lecture Tour Frido Mann: "Democracy Will Win" — Denver
Following in his grandfather's tracks, Frido Mann is going to give lectures in more than a dozen cities in the United States and Canada. He will address the current crises in the American and European democracies and the need for their restoration, on the basis of transatlantic dialogue.
Lecture Tour Frido Mann: "The White House of Exile" — Brandeis University
Following in his grandfather's tracks, Frido Mann is going to give lectures in more than a dozen cities in the United States and Canada. He will address the current crises in the American and European democracies and the need for their restoration, on the basis of transatlantic dialogue.
Lecture Tour Frido Mann: "Democracy Will Win" — New York City
Following in his grandfather's tracks, Frido Mann is going to give lectures in more than a dozen cities in the United States and Canada. He will address the current crises in the American and European democracies and the need for their restoration, on the basis of transatlantic dialogue.
Art Production in La La Land. From the Beginnings at CalArts to the Present Digital Visual Worlds in Los Angeles.
Founded by Walt Disney and opened in 1970, the California Institute of the Arts -- CalArts -- near Los Angeles developed a radical, groundbreaking school model in its early years. Its interdisciplinarity was based on European and American school models such as the Bauhaus and Black Mountain College. At CalArts, key figures such as Allan Kaprow, Judy Chicago, and John Baldessari, who as one of the formative teachers pursued the view that art is not teachable, but that it is a matter of creating situations "where art might happen". With the institutional establishment of conceptual and feminist concepts, CalArts took on a pioneering role. Julika Bosch points out how social issues, such as the questioning of authorship, the flexibilisation of artistic working methods or the criticism of patriarchal power structures were already at the centre of artistic debate at the time.
Talk with the artist Louisa Clement and curator Julika Bosch of Kestner Gesellschaft, hosted by Heike Catherina Mertens.
SILENT SALON Screening: The Nut
Summer is upon us and so is our 6th “Silent Salon”, our annual silent film event. Bring friends and family, make it a surprise date, or entertain guests from out of town with a true L.A. experience. Enjoy a picnic in our gorgeous garden, watch the sunset over the Pacific Ocean and file into our salon for silent films with Live organ and piano accompaniment.
Book Presentation: Wirksame Fiktionen (Effective Fictions)
READING AND TALK WITH AUTHOR. HOST: DANIELA SEEL
“An Appeal to Reason”: Academia's response to current shifts in political culture
The West has been experiencing a deep transformation of political culture in recent years. Basic models of liberal democracy, such as tolerance and freedom of expression, are under attack. Terms such as 'post-truth politics', 'anti-politics' and 'illiberal democracy' go hand in hand with this process. They denounce the consensus among democrats by undermining or openly attacking their values.
The consequences of the shift in political culture for science must be identified as the values of the scientific community itself are at stake: freedom of thought, rationality, objectivity and transparency. Subjective arbitrariness, combined with general doubt cast over established facts, often takes the place of objectively verifiable arguments. But how clear can science make its stance? And how political can science ultimately be? The shift in political culture is a reason to take a critical look at science's traditional understanding of its role.
Thomas Mann House, German Rectors' Conference (HRK) and German Research Foundation (DFG) organize a two-day round table discussion with a public keynote by Craig Calhoun at UCLA on August 26, 7pm. Thomas Mann's experience of exile was closely linked to the shock of being confronted with a massive shift in political culture at the end of the Weimar Republic. In 1930 he gave a courageous address in Berlin, “Ein Appell an die Vernunft” (“An Appeal to Reason”), appealing for the formation of a common front against the fanaticism of the National Socialists.
Craig Calhoun is Professor of Social Sciences, Arizona State University. Previously, he was Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and President of the Berggruen Institute. He taught at the University of North Carolina, Columbia University, and New York University where he founded the Institute for Public Knowledge. Professor Calhoun studied social anthropology at USC, Columbia and Manchester and has a DPhil in politics, sociology, and modern social and economic history from Oxford. His books include: Nations Matter (2007), The Roots of Radicalism (2012), and Does Capitalism Have a Future? (2013).
Artist Talk: The Gold Projections
Artist Talk with Joe Ramirez, Jutta Allmendinger, and Ole Bækhøj. Moderated by Shelly Kupferberg.
SILENT SALON Screening: An evening with Asta Nielsen
Summer is upon us and so is our 6th “Silent Salon”, our annual silent film event. Bring friends and family, make it a surprise date, or entertain guests from out of town with a true L.A. experience. Enjoy a picnic in our gorgeous garden, watch the sunset over the Pacific Ocean and file into our salon for silent films with Live organ and piano accompaniment.
Meet the Fellows
Welcoming Reception for our current fellows Uisenma Borchu & Sven Zellner (filmmaker), Leo Hofmann (composer), Ole Hübner (composer), Angelika Levi (filmmaker), Christoph Keller (visual artist) and Hadeer El-Mahdawy (Feuchtwanger Fellow).
Exhibition: "Der Funke Gottes! Die neuen Schatz- und Wunderkammern"
The exhibition takes place in the framework of a media partnership with WELTKUNST and MEDIENGRUPPE Oberfranken.
Concert: NORTH ATLANTIC JAZZ ALLIANCE
We are proud to welcome the North Atlantic Jazz Alliance (NAJA) for another evening of cool jazz at Villa Aurora
SILENT SALON Screening: The Dragnet Girl
The Dragnet Girl (Hijosen no onna)
Dir. Yasjiro Ozu, Japan, 1933, 100 min,
silent w/musical accompaniment by Villa Aurora Fellow Udo Moll
Concert Fundraiser - Hindemith Recordings
Concert Fundraiser - So You Think You Can Hindemith
with
Diana Wade, Viola
Aron Kallay, Piano
Michael John Kelly & Rachel Eulena Williams
68projects by GALERIEKORNFELD and Villa Aurora & Thomas Mann House present two 68projects resident artists Michael John Kelly & Rachel Eulena Williams
Poetry Talk: Freily ausgefranst. Translingual Poetics
AN EVENT OF THE POETRY FESTIVAL BERLIN 2019
Poets’ Evening #06: Freily ausgefranst. Translingual Poetics
AN EVENT OF THE POETRY FESTIVAL BERLIN 2019
The Arab Spring and the Literature
Arab literature was severely impacted by the turmoil of the Arab spring: Writers and poets were given the opportunity to ask a variety of new questions, to work in unknown territories, and to write more freely. At the same time, they see themselves confronted with exile, have to figure as representatives of their culture, and enter a new cultural environment, without leaving their readers behind.
Conference: Moral Code — Ethics in the Digital Age
The conference „Moral Code“ aims to propose new ways and platforms to communicate about the moral implications resulting from the use of digital technologies.
Fireside Chat: Moral Code — Ethics in the Digital Age
The conference „Moral Code“ aims to propose new ways and platforms to communicate about the moral implications resulting from the use of digital technologies.
Videoart at Midnight #105: Jan-Peter E.R. Sonntag
In celebration of the release of Jan Peter E.R. Sonntag’s RAUSCHEN Box, Videoart at Midnight partnered up with Villa Aurora & Thomas Mann House to present a selection of Sonntag’s video and sound compositions.
The RAUSCHEN Box is published by Merve and contains a vinyl record with the two compositions, RAUSCHEN (2015) and PACIFIC NOCTURNE (2013) plus an edited volume of pictures and essays.
Videoart at Midnight #105: Jan-Peter E.R. Sonntag
Anlässlich der Veröffentlichung der RAUSCHEN-Box von Jan-Peter E.R. Sonntag präsentieren Videoart at Midnight und der Villa Aurora & Thomas Mann House e. V. eine Auswahl von Sonntags Video- und Soundkompositionen. Die Kinoaufführung im Rahmen von Videoart at Midnight ermöglicht ein so noch nicht dagewesenes Erlebnis seiner Arbeit.
Free Speech?!
Freedom of Speech?! - An event in cooperation with Literaturhaus Berlin
Surviving the Flames: A Remembrance of the Nazi Book-Burnings
On May 10, 1933 students at several German universities burned books by authors deemed politically suspect. Vast crowds watched enthusiastically, as the writings of Bertolt Brecht, Alfred Döblin, Lion Feuchtwanger, Aldous Huxley, Heinrich Mann, Klaus Mann, Franz Werfel and others were thrown onto bonfires. In Berlin, some 40,000 people gathered to hear Joseph Goebbels deliver a speech condemning Jewish literature and propagating „reliability and committment to the German spirit“. The book burnings in Germany elcited worldwide protests and triggered counter-demonstrations in many American cities.
Thomas Mann’s grandson Frido Mann will mark the 86th anniversary of the book burning with a reading from the works of Heinrich and Thomas Mann, Oskar Maria Graf, Bertolt Brecht, and Erich Kästner. Frido Mann was born in Monterey, California in 1940. He studied Catholic theoplogy and psychology and worked as a clinical psychologist in Münster, Leipzig, and Prague. Today, Frido Mann resides in Munich as a freelance author. In August 2018, he published “Das Weiße Haus des Exils" (“The White House of Exile”, S. Fischer) about the Thomas Mann House in Los Angeles, where he is currently staying as an Honorary Fellow.
Prof. Mann will be accompanied by violinist Alena Hove (Colbourn School).
SEEfest
SEEfest’s annual Business-of-Film Conference is a dynamic platform for Hollywood innovators and entrepreneurial filmmakers, visiting filmmakers from South East Europe and international filmmakers working in Hollywood to conduct business and network.
Lecture: Democracy Will Win - An Evening with Frido Mann
Born in the United States, Frido Mann sensed the democratic creed of his parents and grandparents from childhood on. They had managed to leave Europe for the U.S. just in time before the outbreak of WWII. During his extended lecture tours, Thomas Mann, Frido's grandfather, addressed his American audiences with his speech “The Coming Victory of Democracy” warning of the dangers of fascism for a liberal democracy: “The social renewal of democracy is the presupposition and the guarantee of its victory.”
Following in his grandfather's tracks, Frido Mann is going to give lectures in more than a dozen cities in the United States and Canada. He will address the current crises in the American and European democracies and the need for their restoration, on the basis of a transatlantic dialogue as initiated by the government of the Federal Republic of Germany. The evening at the residence of the German Consul General in Los Angeles is going to be the prelude to the lecture tour.
Frido Mann was born in 1940 in Monterey/California. He studied music, catholic theology, and psychology and worked as a clinical psychologist in in Münster, Leipzig and Prague. He now lives in Munich and works as a freelance writer. His recent publications are "An die Musik. Ein autobiographischer Essay" (Ode to Music: An Autobiographical Essay) and -together with Christine Mann -"Es werde Licht. Die Einheit von Geist und Materie in der Quantenphysik" (Let there be Light: The Union of Spirit and Matter in Quantum Physics). In August 2018, S. Fischer published "Das Weiße Haus des Exils" (The White House of Exile) about the Thomas Mann House in Los Angeles.
Welcoming Reception
Welcoming Reception for our current fellows Maren Kames (writer), PHILIPP SCHÖNTHALER (writer), GEORG KLEIN (composer), FATMA AYDEMIR(writer), LOUISA CLEMENT (visual artist).
Lecture Tour Andreas Reckwitz: "The Society of Singularities" [CANCELLED]
The culture of Western late-modernity is not that of industrial modernity any more: To a high degree it is centered around the fabrication of singularities, i.e. of entities like objects, subjects, places, events and collectivities which are grasped as unique and particular. Attention, valorization and affect is given to the apparently unique, not to the standardized. There is a paradoxical social logic of singularization taking place embracing cultural capitalism, media technologies, life-styles and politics. What are the causes, patterns and consequences of this society of singularities? It turns out that as soon as singularizations are the focus of wide-ranging social patterns they tend to asymmetries and polarizations which are characteristic of the late-modern present.
The book "The Society of Singularities" was published 2018 in German at Suhrkamp, received several book prizes and is currently translated into five languages. The English edition appears at Polity, Cambridge.
Andreas Reckwitz is professor of sociology at the European University of Frankfurt/ Oder, Germany. He is currently Thomas-Mann-Fellow at the Thomas Mann House in Los Angeles and was awarded with the Leibniz prize 2019. He is the author of several books in the field of social theory and cultural sociology. His recent book “The Society of Singularities. The transformation of modernity” (Suhrkamp 2017) was awarded with several book prizes and is translated into five languages. He is a regular author of the German weekly paper Die Zeit.
Lecture Andreas Platthaus: "An American in Berlin — What Kept Lyonel Feininger?"
Thomas Mann Fellow Andreas Platthaus is invited to Dartmouth College for a presentation at the Department of German Studies, to investigate: An American in Berlin — What Kept Lyonel Feininger? For his upcoming book project on the Bauhaus, Platthaus is looking at the forced ruptures within the history of Bauhaus—the move from Weimar to Dessau in 1925, the relocation to Berlin in 1932, and the forced closure of the school in 1933—and the resulting transformation in self-concept, aesthetics, and politics of the Bauhaus. In this project, Andreas Platthaus is turning in particular to Lyonel Feininger. The American at Bauhaus remained in Nazi-Germany until 1938,when he returned to the United States, but always remained true to his convictions. Platthaus will speak of the pressure to adapt and the forces of resistance in times of rising social radicalization.
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).
Lecture Tour Andreas Reckwitz: "The Crisis of Liberalism in Europe and the Transformation of Class Structure" [CANCELLED]
In recent years, the rise of right-wing populism in Germany, France or Italy, the Brexit-decision in Britain are signals of a deep crisis in which European liberal politics, dominating since the 1980s, have got. What are the causes of this crisis? In his lecture series Andreas Reckwitz elucidates that beneath the surface of political conflict there has been a profound transformation on the economic and cultural level taking place in all European countries which swept away the foundations of former industrial modernity. As a consequence of postindustrialization and value change a new structure of social and cultural classes has emerged which imply antagonistic forms of life. Above all, the new antagonism between a new middle class and a traditional middle class turns out as the background of the political crisis.
Andreas Reckwitz is professor of sociology at the European University of Frankfurt/ Oder, Germany. He is currently Thomas-Mann-Fellow at the Thomas Mann House in Los Angeles and was awarded with the Leibniz prize 2019. He is the author of several books in the field of social theory and cultural sociology. His recent book “The Society of Singularities. The transformation of modernity” (Suhrkamp 2017) was awarded with several book prizes and is translated into five languages. He is a regular author of the German weekly paper Die Zeit.
Lecture Tour Andreas Reckwitz: "The Crisis of Liberalism in Europe and the Transformation of Class Structure" [CANCELLED]
In recent years, the rise of right-wing populism in Germany, France or Italy, the Brexit-decision in Britain are signals of a deep crisis in which European liberal politics, dominating since the 1980s, have got. What are the causes of this crisis? In his lecture series Andreas Reckwitz elucidates that beneath the surface of political conflict there has been a profound transformation on the economic and cultural level taking place in all European countries which swept away the foundations of former industrial modernity. As a consequence of postindustrialization and value change a new structure of social and cultural classes has emerged which imply antagonistic forms of life. Above all, the new antagonism between a new middle class and a traditional middle class turns out as the background of the political crisis.
Andreas Reckwitz is professor of sociology at the European University of Frankfurt/ Oder, Germany. He is currently Thomas-Mann-Fellow at the Thomas Mann House in Los Angeles and was awarded with the Leibniz prize 2019. He is the author of several books in the field of social theory and cultural sociology. His recent book “The Society of Singularities. The transformation of modernity” (Suhrkamp 2017) was awarded with several book prizes and is translated into five languages. He is a regular author of the German weekly paper Die Zeit.
Concert: place/displace
place/displace is about spaces—large and small, acoustic and spatial, synchronistic and anachronistic—and the human experiences placed within and outside of them. The program consists of five works and includes the world premiere of Genoël von Lilienstern’s new piece for solo violoncello and electronics.
A Cultural & Literary Salon
Audacious Storytellers
A historian, a literary critic, an actress and an author come together for an evening of scintillating cultural exchange. These dynamic panelists draw on their knowledge, experience, and anecdotes to contemplate the theme of audacity in all of its forms.
Theater Play: Women at Work - Käthe Leichter and Marie Jahoda
This play highlights the life and achievements of Käthe Leichter (1895–1942) and Marie Jahoda (1907–2001), two Austrian pioneers researching and writing about unemployment, work and gender pay inequality in the 1920s and 1930s. Both women were political activists who opposed the rise of fascism and the Nazis in Austria, and the play portrays them against a backdrop of politically turbulent times.
Concert: ECLECTIC SALON Salastina Music Society & Villa Aurora present "Sounds Local"
We proudly continue our tradition of presenting what’s most beautiful to us among LA’s vast selection of new musical offerings.
Sunday, April 7. 2:00 - 5:00 p.m.
Salastina Music Society invites listeners to join composers, musicians, and artists to celebrate the beauty of the past and present, and to create a future in the spirit of inclusivity.
Styx by Ika Künzel and Wolfgang Fischer
STYX, the highly decorated movie by Ika Künzel (screenplay) and Wolfgang Fischer, is going to open in March.
Book Launch: "Miami Punk" by Juan S. Guse
Book launch in Berlin with Author Juan S. Guse
Meet the Fellows
Welcoming Reception for our current fellows JAKOB LASS (filmmaker), DOREEN KUTZKE (musician), MAX GÖRAN (visual artist), IKA KÜNZEL & WOLFGANG FISCHER (filmmaker).