August 2023

The exhibit explores the trajectory of Mann’s political development in relation to different categories such as personal background, Zeitgeist, his poltical commitments, actions and responsibility. Viewers are invited to interrogate their own beliefs and paths alongside those of Thomas Mann. A series of film clips connects these different topics with ongoing debates and critical moments in contemporary history such as the 2017 Charlottesville riot, the Black Lives Matter Movement, climate change mitigation, and the global refugee and immigration crises.

There will be an opening reception on Wednesday, August 23rd at 4:30pm held in Room 150 of the Joseph R. Pearson Hall, located at 1122 West Campus Road, Lawrence KS 66045. Max Kade Center Director Marike Janzen will give opening remarks followed by Brad Allen, the Executive Director of the Lawrence Public Library, who will speak on the role that public libraries and institutions play in local democracy. The event is open to the public. “Although the exhibit channels the intellectual ideas of Thomas Mann, his questions about democracy and democratization are nationally and globally relevant during this historical moment. It is hard to look at the war in Ukraine and not see it as a battleground for democracy too,” said Ani Kokobobo, Professor and Chair of KU’s Department of Slavic, German, and Eurasian Studies.

The Max Kade Center for German-American Studies is part of the Department of Slavic, German, and Eurasian Studies. The Center aims to collaborate with the Kansas University campus and community to promote the teaching and research of German-speaking people in the United States and beyond. The Kansas University Max Kade Center houses significant collections of books, archives, and artworks related to German Americans, including local history of the Lawrence Turnverein.

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.

At the turn of the century, as camera clubs were springing up across the country, the San Francisco-based California Camera Club was not only the largest in the country. It also had a 14% female membership – twice the national average. Taking the California Camera Club as a point of departure, this talk traces how western clubs served as networks for aspiring female photographers from Los Angeles to Seattle, inspiring many, like Oregon-born Adelaide Hanscom, to claim their legitimate place in the male-dominated camera world and declare “I know what I’m doing.” Amid western photographers celebrating Gold Rush pioneers, monumental landscapes, and industrial extraction, female photographers along the Pacific Coast found ways to shift, and at times disrupt, the common booster rhetoric and shape western American photography in the long term.

A purchase of a ticket is required. Purchase ticket here.

Carolin Görgen is an Associate Professor of American Studies at Sorbonne Université, Paris. After studying American Studies and Art History in the Netherlands, the US, and France, she obtained her PhD from the University Paris-Diderot and the Ecole du Louvre in 2018. Her research focuses on the photographic history of California and the American West. Her work has received support from the Terra Foundation for American Art, the Beinecke Library at Yale, the Huntington Library, and the Amon Carter Museum. She serves on the editorial board of the journal Photographica. Among many other publications, Görgen is the author of the 2021 article “Californian Women Photographers in the U.S. Archival Landscape: Toward a More Inclusive History of American Photography.” She is a 2023 Thomas Mann Fellow.