Thomas Mann House Events Archive
April 2022
Between Los Angeles and Europe: New Approaches to Transatlantic European Studies | Seminar at UCLA
Los Angeles
Information
The seminar begins with an overview of transatlantic cultural, literary, and historical studies going as far back as the colonial era (New Spain, Mexican California). Then, it examines the displacement and dispossession of Indigenous peoples in southern California by Anglo-Americans and European settlers during the nineteenth century, followed by a targeted investigation of transatlantic relations between Angelenos and German immigrants during the twentieth century.
Students apply their newly acquired knowledge to current transatlantic debates in culture, politics, and society. By integrating these lessons into community-engaged interviews with four Thomas Mann Fellows, they explore on a weekly basis concrete, praxis-oriented approaches to transatlantic European studies. Part of the class will be the Thomas Mann Fellows Sunhild Kleingärtner, Christine Landfried, Andreas Nitsche, and Claus Pias. Students go back and forth between Professor David Kim’s seminar on campus and a community-engaged project. In addition, they participate in an interview workshop led by Lynell George, a renowned journalist and essayist. Last but not least, they work with Jimmy Zavala at the UCLA Library Special Collections and with Michaela Ullmann at the USC Libraries Special Collections. The outcome of their individual and collaborative work is a set of public-facing projects shared with communities near and far and during a presentation at the Thomas Mann House in June.
The seminar is led by David D. Kim, Professor at the Department of European Languages and Transcultural Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles in collaboration with Nikolai Blaumer, Program Director, and Benno Herz, Project and Communications Manager.
Partners
The Seminar is a cooperation between the University of California, Los Angeles' Department of European Languages and Transcultural Studies and the Thomas Mann House
Villa Aurora & Thomas Mann House e. V. is supported by the German Federal Foreign Office and Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.
Restoring Public Trust | A four-day, multi-platform program
Los Angeles
Information
Trust in political institutions has been severely shaken in many Western democracies. This is especially true in the United States, where a large portion of the population believes that their democracy is in danger of failing. Even though developments in Germany are less dramatic in comparison, public trust also declined during the Covid pandemic. A majority of citizens who classify themselves as belonging to lower socioeconomic classes are not satisfied at all with the state of democracy in Germany.
This crisis of trust is putting Western democracies to the test. This is all the more true in light of the challenges posed by the ongoing Covid pandemic, the rapid spread of anti-democratic content, growing economic inequalities and the outbreak of war in the heart of Europe. Urgent tasks arise that can only be solved by society as a whole and in international alliances.
Through virtual discussions, video statements, podcasts, articles and streamed conversations from the Thomas Mann House, experts will address how we can strengthen public trust in the areas of international relations, security, elections, diversity, local communities and the broader media landscape. Check out the full program on this website and watch, read and listen to programs at your convenience or sign up for the live events! Be a part of our social wall by posting and commenting on the contributions and find out what is happening at #RestoringPublicTrust.
Participants include sociologists Larry Diamond (Stanford University) and Craig Calhoun (Arizona State University), author Mithu Sanyal, political scientists Christine Landfried (University of Hamburg), lawyer and criminologist Walter Katz, media scholars Anya Schiffrin (Columbia University) and Robin Stevens (University of Southern California), legal scholar Lawrence Douglas (Amherst), artists Suzanne Lacy and Gregory Sholette, archaeologist Sunhild Kleingärtner and journalists Mohamed Amjahid, Aiko Kempen, Olaya Argüeso Pérez and Tom Zoellner (Los Angeles Review of Books), among others.
Visit the event webpage for all information!
Partners
Villa Aurora & Thomas Mann House e. V. is supported by the German Federal Foreign Office and Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.
War in Ukraine: Transatlantic Takeaways
Thomas Mann House (1550 N San Remo Drive Pacific Palisades, CA 90272)
Information
More than two months after the invasion of Ukraine, the conflict continues to dominate our thoughts. The war has brutally thrown Europe back into a world of armored armies and wars of aggression that was thought to have been overcome. Despite discussions about appropriate support measures, however, the West's response has so far been surprisingly unanimous. Many voices therefore see a turning point for European security policy and opportunities for deeper integration.
Political scientist Jan-Werner Müller and journalist Heinrich Wefing discuss the consequences of the war in Ukraine for U.S.-European relations. The event will be moderated by Kimberly Marteau Emerson.
Participants
Jan-Werner Müller is Roger Williams Straus Professor of Social Sciences and Professor of Politics at Princeton University. He works mainly in democratic theory and the history of modern political thought; he also has a research interest in the relationship between architecture and politics, as well as the normative implications of the current structural transformations of the public sphere. Publications include Contesting Democracy: Political Ideas in Twentieth-Century Europe (2011) and What is Populism? (2016). In 2021, Democracy Rules appeared with FSG, Penguin, and Suhrkamp.
Heinrich Wefing is head of the political department of the German weekly DIE ZEIT. He studied History of Art and Law in Bonn and Freiburg and finished his studies with a dissertation in 1992. From 1995 on he volunteered at DIE ZEIT and FAZ, becoming feuilleton editor with the FAZ in 1996, first in Frankfurt, then Berlin, from 2001 to 2004 in San Francisco. From 2008 on he was editor at the political desk of the German weekly DIE ZEIT in Hamburg, in 2010 he became Deputy Head of the Political Department, in January 2018 Head of the Political Department.
Kimberly Marteau Emerson is an attorney, civic leader and human rights advocate. In the Clinton Administration she worked as the Director of Public Liaison for the U.S. Information Agency (USIA). Currently, she serves on the global Board of Human Rights Watch, as Chair of the Board of Governors of Bard College Berlin, and as a member of the Board of Trustees of Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson. Kimberly Marteau Emerson is member of Thomas Mann House Advisory Board.