March 2023

Join the Goethe-Institut Chicago and Northwestern University for a series of talks about Thomas Mann’s advocacy of democracy during the Nazi period, held on the occasion of the exhibition 'Thomas Mann: Democracy Will Win!,' currently on view at the University Library.

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, located on the ground floor of the University Library, 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 library and the exhibit is open to the public Monday – Saturday, 8am – 6pm with photo ID.

An intense dispute is raging on both sides of the Atlantic about whether rich people should make a greater contribution to financing the welfare state and, if so, how this could be done. The debate reflects a profound sense of dissatisfaction in both the USA and the EU. The general feeling is that inequality is on the rise and that, in many cases, the rich pay hardly any tax. How can policymakers respond to this? And what kind of (joint) approach could be used to ensure greater participation by the rich?

It seems that the state of Massachusetts has found a way: in last year’s midterm election on November 8, Massachusetts voters approved the so-called millionaire’s tax which would apply a 4 percent surtax to annual income over $1 million, potentially reducing economic and racial inequality.
This panel brings together two economic experts to discuss the implications of taxing the rich in a transatlantic context: Felix Rohrbeck, Economic Journalist and Evan Horowitz, executive director of Tufts University’s Center for State Policy Analysis (cSPA) which issued a non-partisan report on the millionaires tax.

Felix Rohrbeck, currently a fellow at the Thomas Mann House, is a business journalist. He has received many awards for his investigative research, elaborate reporting and cross-media stories. Between 2014 and 2019, he edited the economics desk at DIE ZEIT, the largest weekly newspaper in Germany with over two million readers. In this capacity he was involved in exposing the cum-ex scandal, the biggest tax robbery in Europe. Since 2020, Felix Rohrbeck is co-founder and editor-in-chief of media-startup Flip. As a 2023 fellow at the Thomas Mann House, he explores what a heavier taxation for the exceptionally wealthy, which is currently being debated both in the USA and in Europe, could look like. To put it very simple, the question at the center of his project is: How to tax the rich?

Evan Horowitz, executive director of Tufts University’s Center for State Policy Analysis (cSPA) has led the center since its launch in early 2020.
He had been the "Quick Study" columnist for the Boston Globe, using data to tell stories about policy issues affecting Massachusetts and the nation as a whole. He also contributed data-heavy stories for FiveThirtyEight, NBC's Think, and the Washington Post, and briefly served as fill-in host for WBUR's Radio Boston.
Evan has worked at several Massachusetts think tanks, one focused on equitable economic outcomes and another dedicated to improving long-term thinking in capital markets.
In the bygone past, Evan was a professor of English Literature, with stints at Stanford, Harvard, Brandeis, Princeton, and the University of North Texas. He also attended the Cordon Bleu, where he learned a set of French cooking techniques that he now uses to keep his family happy at dinnertime.

In her lecture at UCLA, Hasters will address the central assumption that frames Black German life today: the perception that Black people are "new" to Germany. This assumption erases the fact that Black people have lived in German-speaking lands for hundreds of years. As she shows, it also allows anti-Black racism and its history to be falsely viewed as only an American or Western problem with no relation to the German context. Examining the dynamics that unfold from this skewed understanding. Hasters argues that attending to the history of anti-Black racism in Germany enables a deeper understanding of German identity, racism and antisemitism today.

Alice Hasters is a journalist, author and podcaster. She studied at the German School of Journalism in Munich and after graduating worked for the ''Tagesschau'' and Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg, among others. Since 2016, Hasters has been producing the podcast ''Feuer & Brot'' (tr: Fire & Bread) about politics and pop culture together with Maximiliane Häcke. In her publications, she deals with the topics of Afro-German identity, racism and intersectionality. Hasters was named culture journalist of the year in 2020 by medium magazine. She is the author of Was weiße Menschen nicht über Rassismus hören wollen, published by Hanser Verlag, and is currently a 2023 Fellow at the Thomas Mann House Los Angeles.

The CumEx-Files is an investigation by a number of European news media outlets into a tax fraud scheme discovered by them in 2017. A network of banks, stock traders, and lawyers had obtained billions from European treasuries through suspected fraud and speculation. How could bankers, lawyers and investors steal 55 billion Euro of taxpayers money in Europe? And what was the role of American banks, including Morgan Stanley and the Bank of America? Oliver Schröm and Felix Rohrbeck were part of an international team of journalists that exposed the cum-ex scandal. The two journalists Oliver Schröm and 2023 Thomas Mann Fellow Felix Rohrbeck will provide insights into their award-winning investigation in the living room of the Thomas Mann House.

Felix Rohrbeck, currently a fellow at the Thomas Mann House, is a business journalist. He has received many awards for his investigative research, elaborate reporting and cross-media stories. Between 2014 and 2019, he edited the economics desk at DIE ZEIT, the largest weekly newspaper in Germany with over two million readers. In this capacity he was involved in exposing the cum-ex scandal, the biggest tax robbery in Europe. Since 2020, Felix Rohrbeck is co-founder and editor-in-chief of media-startup Flip. As a 2023 fellow at the Thomas Mann House, he explores what a heavier taxation for the exceptionally wealthy, which is currently being debated both in the USA and in Europe, could look like.

Oliver Schröm is one of Germany's acknowledged investigative journalists. He was the founder and head of the Investigative Reporting Team at the Stern magazine. Since 2019, he works for the public broadcasting company ARD/NDR and especially for Panorama, the oldest investigative news show on German television. Since November 2011 he is the chairman of the German association of investigative journalists, Netzwerk Recherche. During his career as an investigative reporter, Schröm has worked on several scoops and investigative stories. Together with Oliver Hollenstein, Schröm is the author of the critically acclaimed 2022 book Die Akte Scholz: Der Kanzler, das Geld und die Macht ("The Scholz File: The Chancellor, Money and Power").

The freedom of art is one of the imperatives of every democracy. But does this freedom make art inconsequential? Does art have a role in addressing social issues, promoting social justice, or in defending democracy when it comes under pressure? In short: does art have a political mandate and what is the role of art in weakened democracies?

The Student Council consists of a team of highly engaged, talented, and diverse high school, undergraduate and graduate students who invite prominent guest speakers to discuss topics relating to art, culture, politics and society.

In conversation with visual artists, musicians, dancers, writers, theater and filmmakers, cultural critics, curators and others, the students will explore how the arts can make a difference in times of social and political crisis; on what social issues they can give new impulses; how they can help shape local communities; and how the alleged freedom and autonomy of the arts might impede or help the arts in terms of social and political significance.

The guest speaker for the third episode of the series is 2023 Thomas Mann Fellow Ghayath Almadhoun, a Palestinian poet born in Damascus, Syria. Ghayath emigrated to Sweden in 2008 and currently lives in Berlin. He published four poetry collections in Arabic, which were translated into dozens of languages. Ghayath Almadhoun collaborated with other poets and artists, and his poetry has been part of the work of US artist Jenny Holze, German musician Blixa Bargeld, and others. His latest collection Adrenalin, published in English by Action Books in 2017, was among Small Press Distribution's Poetry Bestsellers in the US and was nominated for the 2018 Best Translated Book Award. His selected poems Ein Raubtier namens Mittelmeer (A Predator called the Mediterranean), published by the Arche Verlag in 2018, ranked top of the LitProm-Bestseller list in 2018 as best book translated into German.