February 13, 2026

Join the Department of World Languages and Cultures at University of Nevada for the traveling exhibition "Thomas Mann: Democracy Will Win!"

The exhibition commemorates the series of lecture tours that the Nobel Laureate conducted throughout the Unites States from the late 1930s to the mid-1940s. The first of these tours began at Northwestern University, where more than 4000 people came to hear him speak about the fundamental reasons for liberal democracy. “It is a terrible spectacle when the irrational becomes popular,” Mann said in a speech at the Library of Congress in 1943, and he drew on his considerable powers of thought and expression to counter the sources of this spectacle through his confident motto: “Democracy will win.”

The like-named exhibit is divided into two parts: the first charts the changes in Mann’s political views, while the second connects Mann’s lectures tours to current political situations in both Europe and the United States.

The traveling exhibition Thomas Mann: Democracy Will Win! is a collaboration between the Department of World Languages and Cultures at the University of Nevada, and the Thomas Mann House Los Angeles.