With: Armen Avanessian, c/o now, Wojciech Czaja, Verena Hartbaum, Tina Hartmann, Gal Kirn, Philipp Krüpe, Andreas Rumpfhuber, Zsuzsanna Stánitz, Matteo Trentini, Anna Yeboah and others

Welcome/Introduction: Anh-Linh Ngo (ARCH+)
Moderation: Stephan Trüby (IGmA)

The rise of the (New) Right has also entailed architectural policy implications. The research project can be considered a contribution to the re-politicization of the architectural discourse. And also as a contribution to the spatialization of political discourse, since "right spaces" are not discussed in the sense of "good" or "bad architecture", but in the sense of political spatial grasp.

The results of the research are collected in the issue Rechte Räume of the journal ARCH+, which was realized in cooperation with the Institut of Grundlagen moderner Architektur. It includes architectural policy observations from a trip through Europe in winter 2018/19 as well as correspondent reports in which selected authors take a close look at the architectural nationalisms of European states (+ Turkey and the US). The evening will accordingly take the form of a travel report. The experts will discuss the different critical situations in Europe in short lectures.

In the run-up to the event, "Right Spaces" in Berlin will be visited and discussed in the form of a city walk organized by the IGmA. More details will be available shortly at archplus.net/features. To register you have to sign up until May 17 at features@archplus.net.

When Thomas Mann embarked on a journey to his former homeland in 1949, Germany seemed intent on drawing a closing line under the legal reconditioning of crimes committed during the Nazi regime. With support from all political parties, the West German Parliament passed a general amnesty favoring tens of thousands of Nazi perpetrators whose crimes were deemed minor. That same year, the East Germany’s provisional parliament enacted a law waiving punishment of former members of the Nazi Party and of the Wehrmacht.

Despite the country's outward attempts to turn over a new leaf, Thomas Mann regarded denazification in Germany as a farce. Four years after the end of the war, he was deeply pessimistic: „Everything that, for a moment, (…) felt a need to hide in 1945 is once again boldly rearing its head.“ At the same time, most Germans were willing to vote for democratic parties. The chance to establish a free constitutional order, however, was limited to the West.  

Renowned historian Norbert Frei will focus on Thomas Mann’s literary work in the context of Germany’s social psychology in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Moderation: David Kim (UCLA).

Norbert Frei is Chair for Modern History at the Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena and the director of the Jena Center 20th Century History. Professor Frei obtained his doctoral degree from the University of Munich in 1979 and was, among others, Kennedy Fellow at Harvard University (1985/86), a Member of Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (2008/09) and Theodor Heuss Professor at the New School for Social Research in New York (2010/11). Currently, Norbert Frei is Gerda Henkel Visiting Professor at Stanford University. Most recently, he is co-author of „Zur rechten Zeit. Wider die Rückkehr des Nationalismus“ (At the right time. Against the return of nationalism, Ullstein Berlin 2019).

David D. Kim is Associate Professor of German at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is also affiliated with the UCLA International Institute. His scholarly interests range from the age of Enlightenment to the present day with emphases on postcolonial and translation studies, digital humanities, international human rights, and political and cultural theories.

The Federal Foreign Office and its partners invite you to the fourth "Long Night of Ideas" on June 6, 2019. This year's Long Night of Ideas will be focusing on Europe under the heading of "Idea and Ideal - Europe". The idea of Europe will be illuminated in many ways. At prominent locations in Berlin's cultural landscape, from the Volksbühne to the Barenboim Said Akademie to the Silent Green Quartier in Wedding, we present the range of foreign cultural and educational policy. You can find the complete program at menschenbewegen.jetzt/LNDI2019.

State Minister Monika Gruetters, Werner Herzog, Ulrich Raulff and Steven D. Lavine on Film, Literature and Political Responsibility

"I am fascinated by the idea that our civilization is like a thin layer of ice upon a deep ocean of chaos and darkness”, Werner Herzog uttered in an interview with Paul Cronin. Today, more than fifteen years after the publication of their interview, there are more and more indications that, in the West, that “ice cap” has become perilously ruptured, politically as well as economically.

One of the chapters in “The Magic Mountain” is entitled „Aufsteigende Angst". The characters of Mann’s novels are often stricken by the notion of human culture lingering in a deep crisis. Today, this "Raising Fear" or “Growing Anxiety” seems to gain ground again, making an inherent “angst” a distinct feature of our times.

How can literature and film help to master societal anxieties? What role do they play in our quest for clarity and orientation? And which role does cross-border cultural exchange play?

German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media Prof. Monika Gruetters in conversation with director Werner Herzog, cultural scientist and President of the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (ifa) Ulrich Raulff and Steven D. Lavine, Chairman of the Advisory Board, Thomas Mann House.

The West has been experiencing a deep transformation of political culture in recent years. Basic models of liberal democracy, such as tolerance and freedom of expression, are under attack. Terms such as 'post-truth politics', 'anti-politics' and 'illiberal democracy' go hand in hand with this process. They denounce the consensus among democrats by undermining or openly attacking their values.

The consequences of this shift for science must be identified as the values of the scientific community itself are at stake. But how clear can science make its stance? And how political can science ultimately be? The shift in political culture is a reason to take a critical look at science's traditional understanding of its role.

Thomas Mann House, German Rectors' Conference (HRK) and German Research Foundation (DFG) organize a two-day round table discussion with a public keynote by Craig Calhoun at UCLA on August 26, 7pm. Thomas Mann's experience of exile was closely linked to the shock of being confronted with a massive shift in political culture at the end of the Weimar Republic. In 1930 he gave a courageous address in Berlin, “Ein Appell an die Vernunft” (“An Appeal to Reason”), appealing for the formation of a common front against the fanaticism of the National Socialists.

Born in the United States, Frido Mann sensed the democratic creed of his parents and grandparents from childhood on. They had managed to leave Europe for the U.S. before the outbreak of WWII. During his extended lecture tours, Thomas Mann, Frido's grandfather, addressed his American audiences with his speech “The Coming Victory of Democracy” warning of the dangers of fascism for a liberal democracy: “The social renewal of democracy is the presupposition and the guarantee of its victory.”

Following in his grandfather's tracks, Frido Mann is going to give lectures in numerous places in the United States and Canada. He will address the current crisis in the American and European democracies and the need for their restoration, on the basis of transatlantic dialogue.

The event will be moderated by Annie Pfeiffer (Columbia University).

The Thomas Mann House will screen "Cherry Blossoms" (Kirschblüten – Hanami) by Doris Dörrie, from 2008. Rudi and Trudi have been together for 30 years. When Trudi dies suddenly, Rudi flies to Japan to their son Karl, to see the things that were important to Trudi and which they did not have time to experience together: their son in Japan, the legendary japanese cherry blossoms, Fujiyama and Butoh dance, once an obsession of Trudi.
The screening will be followed by a presentation by Thomas Mann Fellow Stefan Keppler-Tasaki (University of Tokyo) in conversation with Professor of Japanese Kyoko Kurita and Associat Professor of German and Russian Friederike von Schwerin-High (both Pomona College).

Participants:
Stefan Keppler-Tasaki, Thomas Mann Fellow / University of Tokyo
Friederike von Schwerin-High, Pomona College
Kyoko Kurita, Pomona College

Born in the United States, Frido Mann sensed the democratic creed of his parents and grandparents from childhood on. They had managed to leave Europe for the U.S. before the outbreak of WWII. During his extended lecture tours, Thomas Mann, Frido's grandfather, addressed his American audiences with his speech “The Coming Victory of Democracy” warning of the dangers of fascism for a liberal democracy: “The social renewal of democracy is the presupposition and the guarantee of its victory.”

Following in his grandfather's tracks, Frido Mann is going to give lectures in numerous places in the United States and Canada. He will address the current crisis in the American and European democracies and the need for their restoration, on the basis of transatlantic dialogue.

The luncheon talk at Brandeis University will be moderated by Prof. Stephen Dowden.

Born in the United States, Frido Mann sensed the democratic creed of his parents and grandparents from childhood on. They had managed to leave Europe for the U.S. before the outbreak of WWII. During his extended lecture tours, Thomas Mann, Frido's grandfather, addressed his American audiences with his speech “The Coming Victory of Democracy” warning of the dangers of fascism for a liberal democracy: “The social renewal of democracy is the presupposition and the guarantee of its victory.”

Following in his grandfather's tracks, Frido Mann is going to give lectures in numerous places in the United States and Canada. He will address the current crisis in the American and European democracies and the need for their restoration, on the basis of transatlantic dialogue.

Born in the United States, Frido Mann sensed the democratic creed of his parents and grandparents from childhood on. They had managed to leave Europe for the U.S. before the outbreak of WWII. During his extended lecture tours, Thomas Mann, Frido's grandfather, addressed his American audiences with his speech “The Coming Victory of Democracy” warning of the dangers of fascism for a liberal democracy: “The social renewal of democracy is the presupposition and the guarantee of its victory.”

Following in his grandfather's tracks, Frido Mann is going to give lectures in numerous places in the United States and Canada. He will address the current crisis in the American and European democracies and the need for their restoration, on the basis of transatlantic dialogue.

Born in the United States, Frido Mann sensed the democratic creed of his parents and grandparents from childhood on. They had managed to leave Europe for the U.S. before the outbreak of WWII. During his extended lecture tours, Thomas Mann, Frido's grandfather, addressed his American audiences with his speech “The Coming Victory of Democracy” warning of the dangers of fascism for a liberal democracy: “The social renewal of democracy is the presupposition and the guarantee of its victory.”

Following in his grandfather's tracks, Frido Mann is going to give lectures in numerous places in the United States and Canada. He will address the current crisis in the American and European democracies and the need for their restoration, on the basis of transatlantic dialogue.

Born in the United States, Frido Mann sensed the democratic creed of his parents and grandparents from childhood on. They had managed to leave Europe for the U.S. before the outbreak of WWII. During his extended lecture tours, Thomas Mann, Frido's grandfather, addressed his American audiences with his speech “The Coming Victory of Democracy” warning of the dangers of fascism for a liberal democracy: “The social renewal of democracy is the presupposition and the guarantee of its victory.”

Following in his grandfather's tracks, Frido Mann is going to give lectures in numerous places in the United States and Canada. He will address the current crisis in the American and European democracies and the need for their restoration, on the basis of transatlantic dialogue.

The annual conferences of the German Studies Association bring together over one thousand scholars in the areas of German history, literature, culture, and politics. Thomas Mann House Fellow Stefan Keppler-Tasaki will present and discuss his book “How Goethe became Japanese: Scenes of Transnational Contact with a National Purpose” at the 43rd German Studies Association conference in Portland, Oregon.

In 1818, Goethe wrote to his prince, Duke Carl August: “Japan is anywhere that one knows how to create it.” This meant the creation of gardening conditions that would be agreeable to the Japanese plants, which Goethe successfully grew in Weimar. Nearly everything what Europeans believed to know about Japan in the days of Goethe changed fundamentally through the Japanese nation building process during the late 19^th and early 20^th century. In this process, Goethe’s saying became true also insofar as Japan proved to be ‘created’ or ‘re-created,’ especially in Japan itself. The ‘know-how’ for this creation came not the least from Goethe’s life and work. Japanese intellectuals from Mori Ōgai, a founding figure of modern Japan, to Osamu Tezuka, the very creator of the Manga genre, drew intensively from Goethe to establish somewhat a Japanese identity—for national self-esteem as well as for harsh criticism on Japan. Given the prominent suicide motifs in Werther and Faust, Goethe became a kind of national author particularly to the so called ‘suicide nation’ Japan. Death testimonies of Japanese individuals from the 1890s until the peak of Kamikaze tactics in 1944/45 provide evidence of that.

In the meantime, the close conjunction of Goethe and Japan was facilitated by European intellectuals such as Thomas Mann and Gottfried Benn, whose 1932 essays on Goethe refer to Japan (Mann) resp. to Buddhism (Benn). Mann, whose brother-in-law lived in Japan since 1931, remodeled Goethe in his essay To the Japanese Youth, a Goethe Study (An die japanische Jugend. Eine Goethe-Studie) according to the image of modern Japan. Benn in his essay Goethe and the Natural Sciences (Goethe und die Naturwissenschaften) commented on the frequent reclamation of Goethe’s world view, particularly of his late poetry, for Buddhist thought. Both essays were textbook pieces in the national colleges of Japan in the 1930s and read by the very youth which was made sacrifice their live in the Pacific War.

The above-mentioned scenes of transnational contact with a national purpose deserve a closer look in the framework of Asian German Studies.

The award-winning German writer and translator Michael Kleeberg will reflect on his father's childhood experiences in postwar Frankfurt to ruminate on the myth of belonging in times of migration. How do we cope with the experience of abandoning our home?

Michael Kleeberg, born 1959 in Stuttgart, studied political sciences and history. After Rome and Amsterdam, he lived in Paris from 1986 to 1999. He now works as an author and translator in Berlin. He has been awarded multiple times for his work, including as Mainzer Stadtschreiber in 2008. His novel "Das Amerikanische Hospital", published 2010, was nominated for the German Book Prize and received the Evangelical Book Prize in 2011. His novel "Vaterjahre" was awarded the Friedrich Hölderlin Prize of the city of Bad Homburg. In 2016, Michael Kleeberg received the Literature Prize of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation for his life's work.

No other author had as strong an impact on Thomas Mann and his works as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. For his 200^th birthday anniversary, Thomas Mann wrote: “He was more than a poet: a sage, a ruler, the last representative and intellectual arbiter of Europe, a grand human.” Thomas Mann interprets Goethe as a democratic pragmatist, as a supporter of a liberal America, whose victory of justice and freedom Goethe called "a relief for humanity."

The Thomas Mann House will accept, in the presence of German Consul General of Los Angeles Stefan Schneider, Thomas Mann’s Weimar edition of Goethe’s works. The volumes return to their original location in Thomas Mann’s former house and are donated by Frederic C. and Sally Tubach. Michaela Ullmann (University of Southern California) will engage Prof. Frederic Tubach (UC Berkeley) in conversation with author and psychologist Prof. Frido Mann and Thomas Mann Fellow Stefan Keppler-Tasaki (University of Tokyo).

Born in the United States, Frido Mann sensed the democratic creed of his parents and grandparents from childhood on. They had managed to leave Europe for the U.S. before the outbreak of WWII. During his extended lecture tours, Thomas Mann, Frido's grandfather, addressed his American audiences with his speech “The Coming Victory of Democracy” warning of the dangers of fascism for a liberal democracy: “The social renewal of democracy is the presupposition and the guarantee of its victory.”

Following in his grandfather's tracks, Frido Mann is going to give lectures in numerous places in the United States and Canada. He will address the current crisis in the American and European democracies and the need for their restoration, on the basis of transatlantic dialogue.

Born in the United States, Frido Mann sensed the democratic creed of his parents and grandparents from childhood on. They had managed to leave Europe for the U.S. before the outbreak of WWII. During his extended lecture tours, Thomas Mann, Frido's grandfather, addressed his American audiences with his speech “The Coming Victory of Democracy” warning of the dangers of fascism for a liberal democracy: “The social renewal of democracy is the presupposition and the guarantee of its victory.”

Following in his grandfather's tracks, Frido Mann is going to give lectures in numerous places in the United States and Canada. He will address the current crisis in the American and European democracies and the need for their restoration, on the basis of transatlantic dialogue.

Born in the United States, Frido Mann sensed the democratic creed of his parents and grandparents from childhood on. They had managed to leave Europe for the U.S. before the outbreak of WWII. During his extended lecture tours, Thomas Mann, Frido's grandfather, addressed his American audiences with his speech “The Coming Victory of Democracy” warning of the dangers of fascism for a liberal democracy: “The social renewal of democracy is the presupposition and the guarantee of its victory.”

Following in his grandfather's tracks, Frido Mann is going to give lectures in numerous places in the United States and Canada. He will address the current crisis in the American and European democracies and the need for their restoration, on the basis of transatlantic dialogue.

Since their introduction roughly twelve years ago, smartphones have fundamentally altered the political and media landscape. Mobile devices have penetrated almost all fields of life. At the same time, false information, manipulated images and videos, as well as new surveillance practices are posing the question how political dangers of communication technologies might be hedged in the future.

The project “Pocket Democracy“ wants to focus on ideas and agents who see the dangers but who also investigate how digital technologies can be used for alternative political solutions. These concern algorithms that recognize false information or manipulated images and videos, that make visible discriminatory malpractice or that digitally enable free and secret elections. “Pocket Democracy“ begins with a day-long workshop to explore current developments in the field of digital democracy and to work on solutions for new forms of political engagement.
 
Keynote: Opal Tometi (co-founder Black Lives Matter)
Participants: Armen Avanessian (Thomas Mann Fellow), Lance Bennett (University of Washington), Jessica L. Beyer (University of Washington), Christoph Bieber (Universität Duisburg-Essen), Damian Borth (Thomas Mann Fellow / Universität St. Gallen), Paulina Fröhlich (Das Progressive Zentrum / Berlin), Adriana Groh (Prototype Fund / Berlin), Philipp Hübl (Philosoph / Berlin), Sarah Lohmann (Johns Hopkins University), Alexander Peterhaensel (Universität der Künste Berlin / Berlin), Ramesh Srinivasan (UCLA), Alexander Sängerlaub (Stiftung Neue Verantwortung / Berlin), Max Senges (Google / Berlin, tbc), Niko Switek (University of Washington), Mellina White-Cusack (Blogger), et al.

Born in the United States, Frido Mann sensed the democratic creed of his parents and grandparents from childhood on. They had managed to leave Europe for the U.S. before the outbreak of WWII. During his extended lecture tours, Thomas Mann, Frido's grandfather, addressed his American audiences with his speech “The Coming Victory of Democracy” warning of the dangers of fascism for a liberal democracy: “The social renewal of democracy is the presupposition and the guarantee of its victory.”

Following in his grandfather's tracks, Frido Mann is going to give lectures in numerous places in the United States and Canada. He will address the current crisis in the American and European democracies and the need for their restoration, on the basis of transatlantic dialogue.

Stefan Keppler-Tasaki, born in 1973 in Wertheim, scholarship holder of the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes from 1993 to 1999 and again from 2000 to 2003, assistant professor for modern German literature at the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg from 2002 to 2005 and at the FU Berlin from 2005 to 2008, taught as Junior Professor for Modern German Literature at the Friedrich Schlegel Graduate School of the FUB from 2008 to 2012. In 2012, he became professor for Modern German Literature at the University of Tokyo, Faculty of Letters / Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology. In 2014, Keppler-Tasaki was appointed Einstein Visiting Fellow at the FUB. Author of Grenzen des Ich. Die Verfassung des Subjekts in Goethes Roman und Erzählungen. (De Gruyter, 2006) and of Alfred Döblin. Massen, Medien, Metropolen. (Königshausen & Neumann, 2018). Co-Founder/co-publisher of the book series WeltLiteraturen (De Gruyter) and Rezeptionskulturen (Königshausen & Neumann).

Bringing It All Back Home: Thomas Mann, America, and Democracy

Lunch talk with Kai Sina (University of Göttingen).

As admirable as Thomas Mann's advocacy for democracy in times of Nazi barbarism doubtlessly is—his concept of democracy remains quite extravagant. Critics have stressed this time and again. What he regards as democracy, they consider from the perspective of practical politics as rather naive. But this critical perception is based on a fundamental misunderstanding. Thomas Mann is primarily interested in democracy as a basic condition for our existence as modern beings. Accordingly, his democratic beliefs are not shaped by political theory, but by literature, namely by Walt Whitman, whose writings and works he had already studied in the 1920s. This finally explains why Mann's political engagement in the USA, at least in general, was highly adaptable. As for his understanding of democracy, he, the émigré, did not enter the United States as a stranger—he came home. Lunch talk with Kai Sina (University of Göttingen), moderated by David Kim (UCLA).

Kai Sina is a literary scholar at the University of Göttingen. His research focuses on the history of transatlantic literature. In 2017, he published an essay on Susan Sontag and Thomas Mann. It will be followed this year by a book on “Collective Poetry.” Its subject is the relationship between modern literature and the open society. It includes studies on Goethe, Emerson, Whitman and Mann.

With his representation of the masses, the Berlin novelist and exile writer Alfred Döblin (1878–1957) introduced a new element to modern German fiction. Döblin, who gained international renown with his novel Berlin, Alexanderplatz, rightfully earned his reputation as the bard of Berlin. From the beginning, though, he pursued his epic style not only with reference to Berlin, but also from consideration of such places as China, Warsaw, Paris, and American cities such as Los Angeles, where he lived from 1940 to 1945. A psychiatrist by profession and a proletarian by conviction, he rejected cosmopolitanism as a bourgeois lifestyle but opened up the possibility of a proletarian cosmopolitanism. Hence, his remark in “Impressions of New York” (1939): “As soon as we set foot on American soil, we are poor people, proletarians.” – This lecture deals with the intersection of Döblin’s Berlin images and his international experiences.

USC Lecture Series “Exile and Resistance – Migrants and Refugees in Literature, History, and Public Affairs”. The lecture series is a collaboration between USC Libraries, USC Dornsife’s Department of French and Italian, and USC Dornsife’s Max Kade Institute for Austrian-German-Swiss Studies.

Stefan Keppler-Tasaki is an associate professor of modern German literature at the University of Tokyo’s Faculty of Letters. He was also an assistant and junior professor of modern German literature at the FU Berlin from 2005 to 2012 and is currently a fellow at the Thomas Mann House Los Angeles.

The United States as well as Europe have seen a return of right-wing tendencies in the political landscape. And this rise of a (new) political right has in turn infected our physical and digital landscapes as well. Philosopher and Thomas Mann Fellow Armen Avanessian invites to an evening of comparative spatial and political investigation: how are buildings, structures and monuments sites for a political struggle for meaning, myth and hegemony? How did the ‘hinterland’ morph into an ideological fringe? Are new technologies neutral tools, equally wielded on both sides of the aisle, or they themselves a cause for populism and polarization? Join Avanessian and his guests at NAVEL on December 6, when they will be hot on the heels of political extremists in Europe, the US, and online.

Stephan Trüby (Institute for Principles of Modern Architecture, Stuttgart) will present his research from the European context. The results of the project have been collected in the Rechte Räume edition of the Berlin-based ARCH+ magazine and aim to fundamentally re-politicize architectural discourse: “right-wing spaces” aren't discussed with regard to “good” or “bad” architecture but with a view towards how politics claims spaces.

After his presentation, Armen Avanessian’s American guests are invited to take the conversation into the local context. Safiya Noble (UCLA) will discuss right-wing space creation and infrastructure online, as well as the inherent prejudices, injustices and racism of algorithmic architecture. Jason Luger (UC Berkeley) will take a look at the American urban and regional fringe and the suburbanization of the right.