September 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.

Carolin Görgen is 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.

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.

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This event will take place online and is open to the public.

The heated debate around documenta fifteen in Kassel, 2022, brought to the fore questions about the function and value of aesthetics. Given that art is deeply entrenched within structures of capitalism and neo-colonialism, the political, social and economic role of art, artistic practices, and art institutions in current conditions of global inequality remains ambivalent and controversial. How do we synchronize in a globalized world the opposing and equally legitimate claims of conflicting memories? Might critical artistic practices facilitate transnational justice and democracy, protecting and promoting human rights? Can art make us political and ethical by provoking us out of our indifference and irresponsibility? Or to the contrary – should art be autonomous and non-purposive and not be placed in the service of political and ethical imperatives? Can the political labor of training the imagination mitigate imperialist, antisemitic, neo-colonist, racist, orientalist and heteronormative structures and practices?

María do Mar Castro Varela studied psychology and pedagogy at the University of Cologne and earned her doctorate in political science at the Justus Liebig University Giessen. She is a professor of general education and social work with a focus on gender and queer at the Alice Salomon University of Applied Science in Berlin. Her research focus on social justice, digital hate and conspiracy theories, and issues of emancipation.

Nikita Dhawan studied German Studies, Philosophy und Gender Studies at Mumbai University and Ruhr-University Bochum. She holds the Chair in Political Theory and History of Ideas at the Technical University Dresden. Her research and teaching focuses on global justice, human rights, democracy and decolonization.