Thomas Mann House Events Archive
2021
“The Meanings of Democracy“ – Melissa Williams, Rainer Forst & Zhao Tingyang in Conversation
Online

Information
The Corona epidemic has resulted not only in the stagnation of many social processes, but also accelerated political change. Surveys show that a rapidly growing number of people already see China as the most important player in international relations. It is therefore particularly important to better understand China's history of political ideas and to develop common ideas for a just global order. Thomas Mann House and Goethe-Institut China bring three world-renowned thinkers into conversation with each other: American philosopher Melissa Williams (University of Toronto), Thomas Mann Fellow Rainer Forst (Goethe University Frankfurt) and Chinese philosopher Zhao Tingyang (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences) discuss global justice and different understandings of democracy in light of their respective cultural contexts.
Click here to watch the premiere of the video on January 10, 11 a.m. (PST) / 20:00 (CET).
Participants

Rainer Forst is Professor of Political Theory and Philosophy and Director of the Research Center “Normative Orders” at Goethe University Frankfurt. His research focuses on questions of justice, democracy and toleration as well as critical theory and practical reason. In 2012 he was awarded the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation. He is a Member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. His most important publications are "Contexts of Justice" (Engl. 2002), "Toleration in Conflict" (2013), "The Right to Justification" (2012), "Justification and Critique" (2014) and "Normativity and Power" (2017); forthcoming is "Die noumenale Republik." Forst ist a 2021 Thomas Mann Fellow.

Zhao Tingyang is a professor and member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and a senior fellow of Peking University Berggruen Research Institute. His theory of the "Tianxia System" (All-Under-Heaven), a theory of world order, tries to transcend Huntington’s “clashes of civilizations,” and advances an alternative to the Kantian conception of perpetual peace. He has published many books including "The Tianxia System: Reimaging Visions of Global Order from the Past and for the Future," and "The Whirlpool that Produced China: Stag Hunting on the Central Plains of China."

Melissa Williams is Professor of Political Science and founding Director of the Centre for Ethics at the University of Toronto. Her general research focus is on contemporary democratic theory, a focus that frequently addresses core concepts in political philosophy through the lens of group-structured inequality, social and political marginalization and cultural and religious diversity. Williams is a former winner of the Leo Strauss Award and is currently editor of "NOMOS," the yearbook of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy.
Watch the Event
Partner
“The Meanings of Democracy“ is a collaboration between the Thomas Mann House and the Goethe-Institut China.
Radical Diversity: Discussion Series with Mohamed Amjahid & Max Czollek (Washington, DC)
Online

Information

Mohamed Amjahid and Max Czollek will engage in a conversation with guests in the U.S. about strategies for a more open, diverse and just society in Germany and the U.S. Thomas Mann Fellow and author Mohamed Amjahid and poet and publicist Max Czollek talk about political activism and diversity. In their work, they discuss the politics of history in the discourse on integration in both countries and raise the question: How is social diversity expressed in politics and art in both countries? What are counter-concepts to white, hegemonic culture?]
The discussion series continues in 2021 with its first installment on February 17, 2021 in Washington, DC, where Mohamed Amjahid and Max Czollek speak with Dr. Imani Woody and Ruby Corado about LGBTQI+ / SGL housing and related issues for the community, such as homelessness, social isolation, economic insecurity, health issues, and age discrimination.
Live online webinar on February 17, 2021, 9 a.m. (PT). Please register here.
No admission.
Participants
Dr. Imani Woody is a nationally recognized thought leader and an advocate of women, people of color, and LGBTQI/SGL people for more than 25 years. She has spoken out locally and nationally about the circumstances of elder LGBTQ+/SGL individuals and the specific jeopardies that LGBTQ+/SGL elders of color face as they age. She is the founder and CEO of Mary’s House for Older Adults, (MHFOA) with the vision and commitment to serve LGBTQ+/SGL elders, experiencing housing insecurity and isolation.
Ruby Jade Corado is the founder and president of Casa Ruby, and has devoted the last 25+ years to advocating for the inclusion of transgender, genderqueer, and gender-non-conforming gay, lesbian, and bisexual people in mainstream society. She has fought for LGBTQI human rights, transgender liberation, immigration equality, and access to healthcare, and fought against hate crimes/violence and many other disparities and issues facing the communities that she represents.
Mohamed Amjahid was born as the son of so-called guest workers in Frankfurt am Main. He studied political science in Berlin and Cairo and conducted research on various anthropological projects in North Africa. During his studies, he worked as a journalist for taz, Frankfurter Rundschau and Deutschlandfunk. He has worked as a political reporter for the weekly newspaper Die Zeit and the Zeit Magazin. Anthropologically and journalistically, he focuses on human rights, equality and upheaval in the US, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. Mohamed Amjahid is a 2020 Thomas Mann fellow.
Dr. Max Czollek completed his doctorate studies at the Center for Research on Antisemitism at the Technical University Berlin. Since 2009, Czollek has been a member of poetry collective G13, which has published books and organized lectures. In 2018, his essay Desintegriert Euch! (Disintegrate!) was published at Carl Hanser. His second essay, Gegenwartsbewältigung (Coping with the Present), was published in August 2020.
Partners
"Radical Diversity" is presented by the Goethe Institutes in North America in cooperation with Thomas Mann House, the Institute for Social Justice & Radical Diversity, funded by the Heinrich Böll Foundation North America.



Freedom from Fear – Video Series with Felicitas Hoppe, Sasha Waltz, Peter Sellars, Sam Durant, Rainer Forst, Martha Nussbaum & more
Berlin
Information
Our new bi-weekly series “Freedom from Fear”, directed by Florian Giefer and Peter Göltenboth (pet&flo directors), premieres on March 4 on YouTube and in Berlin right outside the Gorki Theatre’s STUDIO Я: In his 1941 State of the Union address, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed four goals for “people everywhere in the world”: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear.
These Four Freedoms became part of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. Roosevelt equated “Freedom from Fear” mainly with overcoming war and violence. Today, the global consequences of the pandemic, climate change and of rapid digital evolution and the resulting social change have triggered various fears all over the world.
As social seismographs, the protagonists of the “Freedom from Fear” video series Felicitas Hoppe, Sasha Waltz, Peter Sellars, Sam Durant, Rainer Forst, Martha Nussbaum and James Conlon, just to name a few, will reflect on the significance of the right to live without fear in search of answers: How can literature, dance, music, philosophy and politics address social fears?
Premiere on March 4, 6 p.m. (CET)
March 5 through 14, 4 until 10 p.m. (CET)
Façade of Studio Я (Maxim Gorki Theater), Hinter dem Gießhaus 2, 10117 Berlin
Partner

Radical Diversity: Discussion Series with Mohamed Amjahid & Max Czollek (San Francisco)
Online

Information

Mohamed Amjahid and Max Czollek will engage in a conversation with guests in the U.S. about strategies for a more open, diverse and just society in Germany and the U.S. Thomas Mann Fellow and author Mohamed Amjahid and poet and publicist Max Czollek talk about political activism and diversity. In their work, they discuss the politics of history in the discourse on integration in both countries and raise the question: How is social diversity expressed in politics and art in both countries? What are counter-concepts to white, hegemonic culture?]
Ancestral wisdom reapplied: Chief Tribal Judge Abby Abinanti implements indigenous values and traditions in tribal court and in communal life. An icon in the legal community and in the Native-American society, Abinanti will talk with German authors Max Czollek and Mohamed Amjahid about how the culture and heritage of the Yurok contains everything for a thriving, fair, and equal society.
Tune in on March 10 at 1 p.m. (PT) / 22:00 (CET) for this latest episode of the Radical Diversity conversation series.
Kindly register for this live event here.
No admission.
Participants
Abby Abinanti, Yurok Chief Judge is an enrolled Yurok Tribal member, she holds a Doctor of Jurisprudence from the University of New Mexico School of Law, and was the first California tribal woman to be admitted to the State Bar of California. She was a State Judicial Officer (Commissioner) for the San Francisco Superior Court for over 17 years assigned to the Unified Family Court (Family/Dependency/Delinquency). She retired from the Superior Court in September 2011 and on July 31, 2014 was reappointed as a part-time Commissioner for San Francisco assigned to Dependency, and Duty Judge for that Court where she served until 2015. She has been a Yurok Tribal Court Judge since 1997 and was appointed Chief Tribal Court Judge in 2007, a position she held in conjunction with her Superior Court assignment until 2015.
Mohamed Amjahid was born as the son of so-called guest workers in Frankfurt am Main. He studied political science in Berlin and Cairo and conducted research on various anthropological projects in North Africa. During his studies, he worked as a journalist for taz, Frankfurter Rundschau and Deutschlandfunk. He has worked as a political reporter for the weekly newspaper Die Zeit and the Zeit Magazin. Anthropologically and journalistically, he focuses on human rights, equality and upheaval in the US, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. Mohamed Amjahid is a 2020 Thomas Mann fellow.
Dr. Max Czollek completed his doctorate studies at the Center for Research on Antisemitism at the Technical University Berlin. Since 2009, Czollek has been a member of poetry collective G13, which has published books and organized lectures. In 2018, his essay Desintegriert Euch! (Disintegrate!) was published at Carl Hanser. His second essay, Gegenwartsbewältigung (Coping with the Present), was published in August 2020.
Partner
"Radical Diversity" is presented by the Goethe Institutes in North America in cooperation with Thomas Mann House, the Institute for Social Justice & Radical Diversity, funded by the Heinrich Böll Foundation North America.



LAYKA Lens Series: "Sumurun:" Virtual Discussion with Boris Dralyuk, Deniz Göktürk & Nikolai Blaumer
Online

Information
Shortly before his emigration to the United States, director Ernst Lubitsch created a silent film in which he himself participated as an actor for the last time. Set in Baghdad in the Islamic Golden Age, Sumurun tells of the unrequited love of a hunchback (played by Lubitsch) for a traveling dancer and the elicit love between the enslaved harem girl Sumurun and a cloth merchant. Writer Thomas Mann saw the film in Munich in 1920 and later incorporated the film experience into his novel The Magic Mountain. While Sumurun has been often criticized for stereotypes and historical distortion, the film’s orientalism is also a European projection that tells us much about the social order after the end of the German monarchy and the early Weimar Republic.
The event was part of Yiddishkayt’s LAYKA Lens Series, in partnership with the Thomas Mann House.
We suggest to watch the film prior to joining us for the discussion on March 14th, 11 a.m. (PST) / 19:00 (CET). You can watch the film here.
Participants
Deniz Göktürk, Professor at the German Department UC Berkeley. Her research focuses on moving images, multilingual literature, and theories of migration, social interaction and aesthetic intervention in a global horizon.
Boris Dralyuk, Editor-in-Chief of the Los Angeles Review of Books. He is a literary translator, author and the editor of 1917: Stories and Poems from the Russian Revolution (Pushkin Press, 2016)
Nikolai Blaumer, Program Director at the Thomas Mann House. Since 2014, he has been working for the Goethe-Institut’s Department of Culture. He is co-editor of the book Teilen und Tauschen (S. Fischer Verlag, 2017).
The conversation is moderated by Rob Adler Peckerar, Executive Director of Yiddishkayt.
Watch "Sumurun"
Watch the Discussion
Partners
The event is part of Yiddishkayt’s LAYKA Lens Series, in partnership with the Thomas Mann House and the Los Angeles Review of Books.

The Socio-Economic Impact of the Pandemic with Jutta Allmendinger, Birte Meier & Richard V. Reeves
Online
Information
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect lives around the world, it is becoming clear that the pandemic and its economic fallout are having a regressive effect on gender equality. Sociologist Jutta Allmendinger recently claimed the pandemic will set Germany back 30 years in terms of the equality achieved between men and women. Mothers in particular are disadvantaged by existing containment strategies. But, was the situation really much better to start with or is the pandemic only exacerbating inequities that long predated the virus, as economist Richard V. Reeves recently suggested?
This panel discussion will feature Jutta Allmendinger (President of WZB Berlin Social Science Center) and Richard V. Reeves (Senior Fellow and Director of the Future of the Middle Class Initiative, The Brookings Institution). The discussion will be moderated by Birte Meier (Journalist, ZDF) whose residency at the Thomas Mann House in Los Angeles to work on "Equal Pay in California and what Germany can learn from it" was interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.
Partners
In cooperation with WZB Berlin Social Science Center and American Council on Germany

The Thomas Mann Fellowships are supported by Berthold Leibinger Stiftung, Robert Bosch Stiftung and Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach-Stiftung.
Europeans in Exile: Thomas Mann’s L.A. | Capstone Seminar at UCLA
Los Angeles

Information
Thomas Mann was one of many European artists and intellectuals who made Los Angeles their new home in the 1930s and 40s. This seminar will examine Mann's connections to the city and his network of intellectuals with whom he was in dialogue, including sociologists Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, writers such as Christopher Isherwood and Aldous Huxley, composers Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky, and filmmakers Ernst Lubitsch and Jean Renoir.
The seminar will be led by Professor Wendy Perla Kurtz and Anthony Caldwell, Assistant Director of the Digital Research Consortium at UCLA, and offered by Nikolai Blaumer, Program Director of the Thomas Mann House, and Benno Herz, Project and Communications Manager at the Thomas Mann House. Through readings, workshops, and discussions, students will connect practices in digital humanities to the subjects of the course.
For more information visit: https://dh.ucla.edu/undergradcourses/
Partners
The Seminar is a cooperation between the UCLA Digital Humanities Department 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.

Radical Diversity: Discussion Series with Mohamed Amjahid & Max Czollek (New York)
Online

Information

For the new episode of Radical Diversity, we travel to New York, one of the U.S.’s media and journalism hubs. We’ve invited Carla Murphy, a journalist, writer, and editor who focuses on inequality and diversity in journalism and journalism reform. Murphy will speak with Max Czollek and Mohamed Amjahid about how to build diverse and sustainable newsrooms, as well as challenging the troubled history of objectivity in journalism.
Mohamed Amjahid and Max Czollek will engage in a conversation with guests in the U.S. about strategies for a more open, diverse and just society in Germany and the U.S. Thomas Mann Fellow and author Mohamed Amjahid and poet and publicist Max Czollek talk about political activism and diversity. In their work, they discuss the politics of history in the discourse on integration in both countries and raise the question: How is social diversity expressed in politics and art in both countries? What are counter-concepts to white, hegemonic culture?
Live online webinar on March 31, 2021, 9 a.m. (PT). Please register here.
No admission.
Participants
Carla Murphy is a social justice journalist and editorial consultant. Her struggle as a reporter to cover news for, not about, marginalized or low-income communities fuels her current focus on journalism reform. Through the News Integrity Initiative, she leads data-driven diversity projects for student and working journalists of color and newsroom management. She is editor of the Lewis Raven Wallace podcast and has been commissioned by the Center for Community Media to research and write, The State of Black News Media in the U.S. (forthcoming).
Mohamed Amjahid was born as the son of so-called guest workers in Frankfurt am Main. He studied political science in Berlin and Cairo and conducted research on various anthropological projects in North Africa. During his studies, he worked as a journalist for taz, Frankfurter Rundschau and Deutschlandfunk. He has worked as a political reporter for the weekly newspaper Die Zeit and the Zeit Magazin. Anthropologically and journalistically, he focuses on human rights, equality and upheaval in the US, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. Mohamed Amjahid is a 2020 Thomas Mann fellow.
Max Czollek completed his doctorate studies at the Center for Research on Antisemitism at the Technical University Berlin. Since 2009, Czollek has been a member of poetry collective G13, which has published books and organized lectures. In 2018, his essay Desintegriert Euch! (Disintegrate!) was published at Carl Hanser. His second essay, Gegenwartsbewältigung (Coping with the Present), was published in August 2020.
Partners
"Radical Diversity" is presented by the Goethe Institutes in North America in cooperation with Thomas Mann House, the Institute for Social Justice & Radical Diversity, funded by the Heinrich Böll Foundation North America.



"Last Letters: The Prison Correspondence between Helmut James and Freya von Moltke"
Online

Information
Tegel prison, Berlin, in the fall of 1944. Helmuth James von Moltke is awaiting trial for his leading role in the Kreisau Circle, one of the most important German resistance groups against the Nazis. By a near miracle, the prison chaplain at Tegel is Harald Poelchau, a friend and coconspirator of Helmuth and his wife, Freya. From Helmuth’s arrival at Tegel in late September 1944 until the day of his execution by the Nazis on January 23, 1945, Poelchau would carry Helmuth’s and Freya’s letters in and out of prison daily, risking his own life. Freya would safeguard these letters for the rest of her long life.
Dorothea and Johannes von Moltke, grandchildren of Helmuth James von Moltke and his wife, Freya, discuss their 2019 book Last Letters: The Prison Correspondence Between Helmuth James and Freya von Moltke 1944-45. The book is a profoundly personal record of the couple’s love, faith, resistance, and courage in the face of fascism.
Live online webinar on April 19, 2021, 5 p.m. (PT).
No admission.
Participants
Dorothea von Moltke received her PhD in German literature from Columbia University. She is a co-owner of Labyrinth Books in Princeton and has a sustained engagement with social justice issues, particularly through building libraries in New Jersey prisons and, most recently, through Princeton Mutual Aid.
Johannes von Moltke received his PhD in Literature from Duke University. He is a Professor at the University of Michigan, where he is jointly appointed in German Studies and Film, TV & Media. Professor von Moltke is a member of the Michigan Society of Fellows, Vice President of the American Friends of Marbach, and Past President of the German Studies Association. At Michigan, he has served as the organizer of the biannual German Film Institute.
Partners
The Event is presented by USC Max Kade Institute's Lecture Series Exile and Resistance in cooperation with Thomas Mann House, Goethe Pop Up Seattle, USC Libraries and the Elliott Bay Book Company.




Survivors of the Book Burning: App Launch
Online
Information

On the occasion of the anniversary of the book burning on May 10, 1933, led by the National Socialist German Student Association, the app Survivors of the Book Burning tells the stories of eleven writers who fled Germany after that day and continued their work abroad. The free smartphone app uses their homes and places of work in Berlin, as well as five other locations where the events of the time are thematized, to tell the stories of life in the Weimar Republic, the seizure of power, the harassment and persecution by the National Socialists, their flight abroad and life in exile, the return of some to Germany, and the reception of their works to this day, in a richly illustrated way and through a total of 16 audio pieces. In this way, we would like to demonstrate the topicality of the fates and works recounted and raise awareness of the threat to freedom of expression that still persists worldwide today.
In addition to authors such as Irmgard Keun, Nelly Sachs and Anna Seghers, a special focus lies on authors who spent their exile on the West Coast of the USA, the so-called "Weimar on the Pacific": Vicki Baum, Bertolt Brecht, Alfred Döblin, Lion Feuchtwanger, Thomas and Heinrich Mann, Erich Maria Remarque and Franz Werfel attempted a new start in Hollywood with more or less success. "Survivors of the Book Burning" tells not only of the personal losses of their exile story, but also of new works created in exile that are still world successes in literature and theater today.
The digital program "Survivors of the Book Burning" will launch on May 9 in German and later this month in English in the berlinHistory app for Android and iOS. The author is the literary and cultural scholar Dr. Thomas Schneider. Within the app, the content can be accessed by clicking on the VATMH logo.
- Download at Apple App Store
- Download at Google Play
Partner
In cooperation with BerlinHistory e.V.
Freiheit des Wortes – Where does it still apply?
Online

Information
In its most recent annual report “Reporters Without Borders” designated only 12 countries as "good” when it comes to respecting freedom of the press, information and opinion. Even Germany is seeing a marked increase in attacks against media professionals. Globally, more than 400 journalists and bloggers are in prison. One of them is Pham Doan Trang of Vietnam, who stayed as a Feuchtwanger Fellow at Villa Aurora in 2014 and was arrested last year. She analyzed methods of restricting free speech, which we would like to take as a starting point for an online event with readings and a discussion with international artists and authors, as well as representatives from politics and culture in order to illuminate this question: Where does freedom of speech still apply?
This and much more will be discussed by Michelle Müntefering (Minister of State for International Cultural Policy at the Federal Foreign Office and Member of the Bundestag from Herne), Heike Catherina Mertens (Executive Director of Villa Aurora & Thomas Mann House e. V.), Ralf Nestmeyer (Vice-President of PEN-Zentrum Deutschland and Writers-in-Prison Representative) and these distinguished artists and authors: Ghassan Hammash (Syrian cultural manager and producer; founder and managing director of Barzakh gGmbH), Çiğdem Akyol (German journalist and author), Nahed Al Essa (fled Syria, lives, works and writes in Germany), Enoh Meyomesse (Cameroonian author, historian, blogger and political activist, was released after four years of imprisonment on the initiative of the Writers-in-Prison program Germany and now lives in Darmstadt. Since then, Jürgen Strasser has accompanied him as a German-language translator), and Şehbal Şenyurt Arınlı (Turkish documentary filmmaker, human rights activist and journalist, was imprisoned in 2017 and had to leave Turkey, from 2017 to 2020 he was Writers-in-Exile fellow). The conversation will be moderated by Shelly Kupferberg.
Partners
An online panel discussion by VATMH, PEN-Zentrum Deutschland, Literaturhaus Berlin and Reporter ohne Grenzen Deutschland.
In cooperation with Auswärtiges Amt.
Leadership in the Arts or Failure is what it's all about!
Online

Information
Online discussion with Mischa Kuball, Lilian Haberer, Steven D. Lavine and Jörn Jacob Rohwer. Introduction: Heike Catherina Mertens / in English
Why is failure a possible and important principle in artistic practice and its teachings? Our guests Steven D. Lavine and Jörn Jacob Rohwer will address this question in conversation with Mischa Kuball and Lilian Haberer. Based on Lavine's experience as long-term president of the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts 1988-2017), our guests will connect the teachings of American (private) art schools with those in Germany.
CalArts lived through a long period of insignificance before Steven D. Lavine stepped in and led it to financial prosperity and international renown. Today, the art school is a cradle for Oscar and Pulitzer Prize winners, for Mellon and Guggenheim Fellows: a hotspot of U.S. creativity.
Background and starting point to this discussion is the newly published book "Steven D. Lavine. Failure is What It's All About. A Life Devoted to Leadership in the Arts" (Deutscher Kunstbuchverlag) by Villa Aurora alumnus Jörn Jacob Rohwer. In this book Lavine tells his personal story for the first time. He talks about cultural politics, philanthropy, the avant-garde, and his life in Los Angeles. Prompted by self-doubt and a desire to fail, he emerges as a subtle thinker, visionary, and transatlantic mediator between the worlds of art, education, and politics.
Jörn Jacob Rohwer is well known for biographical conversations with personalities from art, literature, science, and society - among others with Susan Sontag, Tomi Ungerer, Heinrich Hannover, Hans Keilson, Doris Lessing, George Tabori but also Leni Riefenstahl and Daniel Goldhagen or Richard Sennett. In 2004 Rohwer was a resident at the Villa Aurora.
The conversation is prompted by the just-published biography of former CalArts president Steven D. Lavine, written by Villa Aurora alumnus Jörn Jacon Rohwer: Jörn Jacob Rohwer / Steven D. Lavine. Failure is What It's All About. A Life Devoted to Leadership in the Arts. Deutscher Kunstbuchverlag, 2021. ISBN: 978-3-422-98155-3, Price: 34,90 € [D].
To join the event please register via e-mail by May 9, 2021 to: lecture120521@khm.de. The zoom link and password will be send to you one day in advance (May 11).
Partner
In cooperation with The Academy of Media Arts Cologne (KHM).
Weighing Moral Goods in Corona Politics
Online

Information
Policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic require the balancing of moral and legal goods. Protection against infection and care for vulnerable groups must be weighed against other goods such as freedom of assembly, the right to education and the right to freedom of religion. Making appropriate trade-offs is part of political negotiation processes. Within federal democracies, but also at the international level, very different results are achieved. For example, different regulations apply in Berlin than in Los Angeles. And while personal freedom of action and individual responsibility are emphasized in Sweden and in individual U.S. states, many other countries prioritize the protection of the weakest and rely on mandatory collective measures.
Constitutional law scholar and Thomas Mann Fellow Christoph Möllers (Humboldt University of Berlin) will be in conversation with philosopher Julian Nida-Rümelin (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich) and political scientist Simone Chambers (University of California Irvine). What ethical and legal conflicts are significant for corona policies in Germany and the United States? And what can be learned from these conflicts for a democratic renewal? The conversation will be moderated by Georg Diez. Diez is a writer and long-time journalist working for Süddeutsche Zeitung, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, Die Zeit and as a political columnist for Spiegel Online He is the editor-in-chief of The New Institute.
Livestream on May 22, 2021 at 11:00 a.m. (PST).
Free admission.
Participants
Simone Chambers is a Professor of Political Science at the University of California at Irvine. She has written and published on such topics as deliberative democracy, public reason, the public sphere, secularism, rhetoric, civility and the work of Jürgen Habermas and John Rawls. She recently published an edited volume with Peter Nosco on navigating pluralism: Dissent on Core Beliefs: Religious and Secular Perspectives (Cambridge University Press, 2015). She works with the group Participedia gathering data on deliberative and participatory initiatives around the world.
Christoph Möllers is a Professor of Public Law and Jurisprudence, Faculty of Law, Humboldt-University Berlin and a Permanent Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study Berlin. His main research interests include German, European and comparative constitutional law, regulated industries, democratic theory in public law and the theory of normativity. He is a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and was a judge at the Superior Administrative Court in Berlin. In 2016 he was awarded the Gottfried-Wilhelm-Leibniz-Prize. Möllers is a 2021 Thomas Mann Fellow.
Julian Nida-Rümelin studied philosophy, physics, mathematics and political science in Munich and Tübingen. He has taught philosophy and political theory at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich since 2004. His research areas are the theory of rationality, ethics and political philosophy. Nida-Rümelin served as Minister of State for Culture in Gerhard Schröder's first cabinet. Nida-Rümelin is Vice-Chair of the German Ethics Council. He and Natalie Weidenfeld recently published the book Die Realität des Risikos with Piper Verlag.
Partner
The event is a collaboration of the Thomas Mann House and The New Institute.

Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man
Online

Information
Thomas Mann's book Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man (1918) bears witness to how the bourgeois writer Thomas Mann became a fierce advocate of the German cause and a voice of the völkisch German right during the First World War. While the title of the book, published in 1918, suggests a flight from the political, the years of World War I represent the beginning of Thomas Mann's checkered life as a political writer.
Historian Mark Lilla and publicist Thea Dorn will discuss how Thomas Mann went from being a staunch anti-democrat to a champion of the Weimar Republic and what we can learn from this to counter current polarizing tendencies. Edwin Frank (New York Review Books) will moderate the event.
In May 2021, New York Review Books will publish Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man as part of their NYRB Classics edition with an introduction by Mark Lilla.
Livestream on May 23, 2021 at 11:00 a.m. (PST).
Free admission.
Participants
Mark Lilla is Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University and a prizewinning essayist for the New York Review of Books and other publications worldwide. His books include The Once and Future Liberal. After Identity Politics; The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals in Politics. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Thea Dorn is the author of award-winning novels, plays, screenplays and essays and has been the lead presenter on the program "Literarisches Quartett" on German television since March 2020. Most recently, she published the book "Trost. Briefe an Max" with Penguin. Thea Dorn lives in Berlin.
The conversation will be moderated by Edwin Frank. Frank was born in Boulder, Colorado and educated at Harvard College and Columbia University. He is the author of Snake Train: Poems 1984–2013 and the editorial director of the NYRB Classics series.
Partners
The event is a collaboration between the Thomas Mann House, New York Review Books, 1014 and Skylight Books.


The City of Man: The Future of Multilateral Politics
Online

Information

From the threat of a global pandemic, to climate change, the rule of law, terrorism and human rights: The world faces problems that states cannot solve alone. But the necessary cooperation in a globalized world presupposes that certain principles and values are shared by all parties. Multilateralism is as much a prerequisite as an instrument for all states to cooperate with each other and promote common goals, but also to balance and regulate competing interests.
As the Brookings Institution has shown in the recent study Competing for Order, the current malaise of the multilateral order goes deeper than the nationalistic aspirations of individual politicians. A logic of "you're with us or you're against us" threatens to prevail in the international arena.
It is time to ask: What is the future of multilateral politics? And what concrete measures can revive it today? And - very concretely - what lessons can be learned from the initiative The City of Man. A Declaration on World Democracy, which Thomas Mann launched in 1940 together with Reinhold Niebuhr, Antonio Giuseppe Borgese, and others to outline their vision of a global and stable system of states in which humanity would be the guiding principle for securing peace and social welfare.
The program presents perspectives from diplomacy, political science, and literature and brings them into a joint conversation.
With introductory remarks by Consul General Stefan Schneider, Los Angeles.
Livestream on June 3, 2021 at 11:00 a.m. (PST).
Free admission.
Participants
Ambassador Nina Hachigian was appointed by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to be the first Deputy Mayor of International Affairs in 2017. Her office seeks to expand Los Angeles' global ties to help bring jobs, culture, visitors to the city and to share L.A.'s values and experience. Prior to this, she served as the U.S. Representative to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. She was a Senior Fellow and a Senior Vice President at the Center for American Progress and the director of the RAND Center for Asia Pacific Policy. She served on the staff of the National Security Council in the Clinton White House from 1998-1999.
Friedhelm Marx studied linguistics and litrature and catholic theology in Tübingen, Bonn and at the University of Virginia. In 1994, he received his doctorate in Bonn with a thesis on Goethe and Wieland; in 2000 he habilitated at the University of Wuppertal with a thesis on Christ Figurations in the Work of Thomas Mann. Since 2004, Friedhelm Marx has held the Chair of Modern German Literature at the Otto-Friedrich-University Bamberg. He is a 2021 Thomas Mann Fellow.
Michael Zürn is a political scientist. His research particularly focuses on the emergence and functioning of international and supranational institutions and their effects on the global political order. Prof. Zürn is Director of the Department of Global Governance at the Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB) and Professor of International Relations at Freie Universität Berlin. He is a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and of the Academia Europaea since 2014. He is a 2021 Thomas Mann Fellow.
The conversation will be moderated by Kimberly Marteau Emerson. Emerson is a lawyer, civic leader and human rights advocate who serves on the Board of Directors of Human Rights Watch, the Europe and Central Asia Advisory Committee, the Berlin and Los Angeles (co-chair emerita) City Committees, and many more.
Partners
This event is presented by the Thomas Mann House in collaboration with the American Council on Germany and the German Consulate General Los Angeles.


Everything will change. Narrating Extinction
Online

Information
The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown us into a state of emergency. However, from the distant future, our time will not primarily be remembered as the 'virus years', but as the era of mass extinction of wildlife. What disappears now will be gone forever and future generations will judge us by our ignorance. We are writing natural history and should be aware of our responsibility. But what if we could manage not to pass on poverty and chaos, but a renaissance?
This event is based on Marten Persiel’s new movie “Everything will change” (Flare Film, 2021) with participation of Ursula K. Heise (Marcia H. Howard Chair in Literary Studies at the Department of English and the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at UCLA), Mojib Latif (Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Chairman of the Board of the German Climate Consortium – DKK), Randy Olson (Filmmaker, Producer & Marine Biologist) and Carla Reemtsma (Activist, Fridays for Future, Germany). Villa Aurora Alumnus Marten Persiel (filmmaker and director of the documentary feature “This Ain’t California”) will moderate the event. Welcoming remarks by Heike Catherina Mertens (VATMH) and Johannes Vogel (Museum für Naturkunde).
Send your questions on biodiversity and species extinction via Slido. (No Registration Needed)
Coming soon

EVERYTHING WILL CHANGE. A feature film by Marten Persiel (Flare Film, 2021) | FACEBOOK | INSTRAGRAM
Partners
In cooperation with Museum für Naturkunde – Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science

This event is part of the Long Night of Ideas 2021 by the Federal Foreign Office of Germany.

Haircuts & Social Justice: Three Generations from Los Angeles in Conversation
Online

Information
Watch the video here
Participants
Partners
The Kultursymposium Weimar is a discursive festival of the Goethe-Institut for new networks and ideas. The video is the Thomas Mann House's contribution to the symposium in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut Los Angeles.

Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal
Online

Information

In his new book Last Best Hope, America in Crisis and Renewal, award-winning author George Packer diagnoses America’s descent and envisions a path toward overcoming our divisions, injustices, and paralyses. The former Mayor of Culver City, CA, Thomas Aujero Small helped guide the city’s response to the Covid crisis, witnessing firsthand the massive pressure that the pandemic put on democracy in our politically divided society.
Packer and Small will discuss the crucial issues raised in Packer’s book, and the despair and hope for democracy in America that this crucible year has so starkly revealed.
This event is co-hosted with Village Well Books & Coffee in Culver City, CA.
Livestream on June 19, 2021 at 11:00 a.m. (PST).
Free admission.
Participants
George Packer is an award-winning author and staff writer at The Atlantic. His previous books include The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America (winner of the National Book Award), The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq, and Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century (winner of the Hitchens Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for biography). He is also the author of two novels and a play, and the editor of a two-volume edition of the essays of George Orwell. His essays and articles have appeared in Boston Review, The Nation, World Affairs, Harper's, The New York Times, and The New Yorker, among other publications. Packer was a columnist for Mother Jones and was a staff writer for The New Yorker from 2003 to 2018.
Thomas Aujero Small is founder and CEO of the nonprofit Culver City Forward, a public-private partnership to bring together leaders from the Culver City business, government, educational, philanthropic, and community groups to provide a non-partisan and fact-based platform to strengthen Culver City’s economy, support the local workforce, and meet the diverse needs of the business, civic, and community stakeholders. Small formerly served on the City Council of Culver City, California, from April 2016-December 2020, including his rotation as Mayor of Culver City from 2018 to 2019. Small was elected unanimously as Mayor by his colleagues on the City Council in 2018. Prior to his election to City Council, he served as Commissioner of Cultural Affairs.
Partner
This event is co-hosted with Village Well Books & Coffee

Thomas Mann & Modern Music in L.A. – The Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra at the Thomas Mann House
Online

Information

Los Angeles has a rich cultural history and has been the home to many of the world’s greatest artists for over a hundred years. Especially during the second World War, many artists came to Los Angeles in exile and formed close connections with Thomas Mann, including Arnold Schoenberg, Ernst Toch, and Hanns Eisler. The Thomas Mann House is happy to share a program in partnership with the Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra that celebrates the rich history of music from composers connected to Thomas Mann and Los Angeles, from the past and present.
In addition to the performance, KUSC Radio host Rich Capparela will be hosting a pre concert discussion about
Thomas Mann, the music from our program, and connections to contemporary issues of politics, society, and culture.
Programs
Part I, Saturday August 7th at 11 a.m. Pacific Time:
Alma Mahler, 4 Lieder
Dale Trumbore, What Only Poetry Can Do
Arnold Schoenberg, Sechs Kleine Klavierstücke, op. 19
Hanns Eisler, Hollywooder Liederbuch
Part II, Sunday August 8th at 11 a.m. Pacific Time:
Arnold Schoenberg, Das Buch der hängenden Gärten, op. 15
Reena Esmail, Rang de Basant
Ernst Toch, Profiles
Sarah Gibson, Arson
The program is split in two parts and the videos will premiere on August 7 and August 8, 2021 at 11:00 a.m. (PST).
Click here for Part I and Part II.
Free admission.
Partner
This event is a collaboration with the Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra.

"The Magician": Reading and Conversation
Thomas Mann House (1550 N San Remo Drive Pacific Palisades, CA 90272)

Information
In his new novel, "The Magician," award-winning Irish author Colm Tóibín tells the life of Thomas Mann as a novel. From his childhood in Lübeck to his marriage in Munich, from his opposition to the Nazis to his American exile.
Just as Tóibín described the life of Henry James in "The Master," his new book chronicles the life of the Nobel Prize winner, the brilliant, complex artist whose life unfolds at a time when change and war are shaking Europe. The novel contains fascinating sections about interwar Germany: the inflation, the growing discontent, the chaos, but also the artistic and sexual freedom that Mann's children Erika and Klaus experienced and lived out. We see Thomas and Katia Mann struggling to find their way in a new and strange home, first in Princeton and later in Los Angeles.
"The work of a first-rate novelist artful, moving and very beautiful," The New York Times Book Review wrote of the work. The author will be in conversation with literary scholar and Thomas Mann expert Friedhelm Marx.
The event will be recorded and made available on the Villa Aurora & Thomas Mann House Youtube Channel on September 19.
By invitation only.
Participants

Colm Tóibín is one of the most important Irish authors of the present day. He is the author of ten novels, including The Magician, his most recent novel; The Master, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; Brooklyn, winner of the Costa Book Award; The Testament of Mary; and Nora Webster, as well as two story collections and several books of criticism. Colm Tóibín is a professor of humanities at Columbia University. Tóibín has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times. He lives in Dublin and New York.

Friedhelm Marx is Chair of Modern German Literature at the University of Bamberg. He is co-editor of the Thomas Mann Handbook (Stuttgart 2018) and since 2015 has been spokesman for the jury awarding the Thomas Mann Literature Prize of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck and the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts. Friedhelm Marx has been Vice President of the German Thomas Mann Society since 2006 and is currently a Fellow of the Thomas Mann House Los Angeles.
Partners
An event by the Thomas Mann House in collaboration with Scribner, Skylight Books, and Goethe-Institut Irland.


Der Villa Aurora & Thomas Mann House e. V. wird gefördert vom Auswärtigen Amt und von der Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien.
Conference: John Rawls's "A Theory of Justice at Fifty"
University of Notre Dame McKenna Hall Conference Center (1399 N. Notre Dame Avenue Notre Dame, IN 46556)

Information
2021 brings the 50th anniversary of the publication of A Theory of Justice and the centenary of John Rawls's birth. In September of this year, the University of Notre Dame will host an international conference to mark those anniversaries. The conference will bring together approximately 25 of the best political philosophers in the world who engage Rawls's work, some critically and some sympathetically. The conference promises to advance scholarly understanding of his thought and its relevance to contemporary politics.
Thomas Mann Fellow Rainer Forst is invited to participate in a session on September 24, at 3:45 p.m., entitled Rawls and Public Reason Liberalism.
Find the program for this conference and information on how to register here.
Participant

Prof. Dr. Rainer Forst is Professor of Political Theory and Philosophy at Goethe University Frankfurt. His research focuses on questions of justice, democracy and tolerance as well as Critical Theory and practical reason in the tradition of Immanuel Kant. In 2012 he was awarded the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the DFG. Rainer Forst is Full Member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. From 2010 to 2018 he was an Associate Editor of "Ethics" (now on the board) and he has been a Member of the Executive Editorial Committee of "Political Theory" and engaged in various functions in numerous other international journals. Also, he is Co-Editor of the book series "Theorie und Gesellschaft" and "Normative Ordnungen" at Campus Verlag. Prof. Dr. Rainer Forst is 2021 Thomas Mann Fellow.
Parnter
This conference is organized by the University of Notre Dame Department of Philosophy.

Villa Aurora & Thomas Mann House e. V. is supported by the German Federal Foreign Office and Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.

The End of Crises? Political Reflections after the German Election
Thomas Mann House (1550 N San Remo Drive Pacific Palisades, CA 90272)

Information
The recent German elections on September 26 marked not only the end of Chancellor Angela Merkel's era, but also a political moment of truth after four extremely turbulent years. The focus of the debates is on the climate crisis, the catastrophic effects of which are becoming increasingly tangible in Germany as well, the ongoing fight against the Corona pandemic, and threats to the Western alliance of values.
While a majority in Germany generally supports climate protection and measures to contain the pandemic, the massive disputes over protection against infection also highlight the polarization of the political public. Controversies over freedom of travel and the fair distribution of vaccines demonstrate that the pandemic is not only a crisis for German democracy, but also for the European and transatlantic alliance.
To what extent can the recent federal elections be a turning point for the management of these political crises? What are the prospects for restoring public trust and strengthening political participation? What foreign policy measures would be necessary to stop the regression of the democratic West? The event is moderated by Alexandra Lieben.
By invitation only.
Participants
Karen Alter is the Norman Dwight Harris Professor of International Relations and Professor of Political Science and Law at Northwestern University, a permanent visiting professor at the iCourts Center for Excellence, University of Copenhagen Faculty of Law, and the co-director Research Group on Global Capitalism and Law at Northwestern University. Alter’s research focuses on the construction of global economic rules, the determinants of politically sustainable capitalism, and backlash politics.
Simone Chambers is a Professor of Political Science at the University of California at Irvine. She has written and published on such topics as deliberative democracy, public reason, the public sphere, secularism, rhetoric, civility and the work of Jürgen Habermas and John Rawls. She works with the group Participedia gathering data on deliberative and participatory initiatives around the world.
Rainer Forst is Professor of Political Theory and Philosophy and Director of the Research Center “Normative Orders” at Goethe University Frankfurt. His research focuses on questions of justice, democracy and toleration as well as critical theory and practical reason. In 2012 he was awarded the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation. Forst ist a 2021 Thomas Mann Fellow.
Alexandra Lieben is the Deputy Director of the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations – and lecturer at the Luskin School of Public Affairs. She has served as faculty advisory on several social impact projects at the UCLA Anderson School of Management and teaches crisis de-escalation, conflict resolution, and cultural competency to UCLA students and professionals in the public and the private sector. She is a member of the Thomas Mann House Advisory Board.
Christoph Möllers is a Professor of Public Law and Jurisprudence, Faculty of Law, Humboldt-University Berlin and a Permanent Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study Berlin. His main research interests include German, European and comparative constitutional law, regulated industries, democratic theory in public law and the theory of normativity. In 2016 he was awarded the Gottfried-Wilhelm-Leibniz-Prize. Möllers is a 2021 Thomas Mann Fellow.
Michael Zürn is Director of the research unit Global Governance at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center and Professor of International Relations at the Free University Berlin. His research particularly focuses on the emergence and functioning of international and supranational institutions and their effects on the global political order. Zürn is a 2021 Thomas Mann Fellow.
The Return of Thomas Mann's Piano – Inauguration by Igor Levit
Thomas Mann House (1550 N San Remo Drive Pacific Palisades, CA 90272)

Information
After almost 70 years, the Mann family’s baby grand piano finds its way back to its former home in California. Grandson Frido Mann donated the heirloom to the Federal Republic of Germany: "Out of gratitude for the German government's acquisition and rededication of Thomas Mann's former California exile home into a site of transatlantic dialogue in the service of democracy and peace, I have returned this historically symbolic and at the same time forward-looking instrument to its original home as a gift to the federal government."
The Wheelock grand piano was not only played by Mann's contemporaries such as the conductor Bruno Walter and the sociologist and composer Theodor W. Adorno. The instrument also accompanied the writer during the writing of his musical novel "Doktor Faustus" and he improvised on Wagner's "Tristan" chord on the instrument. When the Mann family returned to Europe in the early 1950s, they took the instrument with them to their home on Lake Zurich. Villa Aurora & Thomas Mann House had the grand piano completely overhauled with the support of the Berthold Leibinger Stiftung. Now the instrument will be inaugurated at the Thomas Mann House by Igor Levit, whom the New York Times described as "one of the most important artists of his generation." Michelle Müntefering, Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office, accepts the donation from Frido Mann on site. About the donation, she says: "Places like the Thomas Mann House are essential to meet the global challenges we face. I'm sure Thomas Mann would have been pleased that his grand piano is now returning to this special place."
By invitation only.
Programs
Opening remarks: Steven Lavine, Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Thomas Mann House
Address: Michelle Müntefering, Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office
Address: Frido Mann, donor of the instrument
Performance: Igor Levit, Piano Sonata No.1, in F minor, Op.2 No.1, Ludwig van Beethoven
Conversation: Igor Levit, Frido Mann and Michelle Müntefering, moderated by Alex Ross (The New Yorker)
Performance: Igor Levit, Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111, Ludwig van Beethoven
Ending: Nikolai Blaumer, Program Director Thomas Mann House
Participants

Igor Levit has been named Musical America’s Recording Artist of the Year (2020), Gramophone Classical Music Awards Artist of the Year (2020), and the 2018 Gilmore Artist. In November 2020, he was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo. He is regular soloist with the world’s leading orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and the Vienna Philharmonic. Igor Levit’s 2019 highly-acclaimed first recording of the 32 Beethoven-Sonatas was awarded the Gramophone Artist of the Year Award as well as the Opus Klassik in autumn 2020. His recent release is a double album featuring Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes and Fugues Op. 87 and Ronald Stevenson’s Passacaglia on DSCH. For his political commitment Igor Levit has been awarded the 5th International Beethoven Prize in 2019, followed by the award of the Statue B of the International Auschwitz Committee in January 2020. In October 2020, Igor Levit was recognized with the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. Igor Levit is an exclusive recording artist of Sony Classical Exclusive Worldwide Management: Kristin Schuster, Classic Concerts Management GmbH.

Frido Mann holds a PhD in Theology and is the grandson of Nobel Prize-winner Thomas Mann. He worked as a clinical psychologist and professor of psychology in Münster, Leipzig and Prague after studying music, catholic theology and psychology. Today, he lives as a freelance writer in Munich. He publishes essays and novels. He publishes essays and novels. Most recently, together with Christine Mann, Es werde Licht (2017) and Im Lichte der Quanten (2021). In his book Das Weiße Haus des Exils (2018), he recalls the Manns' political engagement in exile and confronts the question of what impact open dialogue can still have today. His most recent book is Democracy will win. Confessions of a Global Citizen (2021). Frido Mann was an Honorary Fellow at the Thomas Mann House. On several occasions during his childhood, he also spent extended periods of time at his grandparents' home in Pacific Palisades.

Michelle Müntefering has been Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office since 14 March 2018. She is a member of the German Bundestag since 2013, directly elected in her constituency Herne/Bochum II. After her studies of journalism with a focus on economics (B.A.) she worked as a freelance journalist and as a research assistant at the German Bundestag. During the 18th legislative period Mrs. Müntefering was member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and rapporteur for Turkey and the Middle East in the Committee. She was the SPD parliamentary group’s spokesperson for Cultural and Education Policy Abroad and chairwoman of the German-Turkish Parliamentary Friendship Group of the German Bundestag. Inter alia Ms. Müntefering is member of the Board of Trustees of the German Federal Cultural Foundation, member of the Supervisory Board of the Humboldt Forum Kultur GmbH, and member of the Broadcasting Board of the Deutsche Welle.

Alex Ross has been the music critic at The New Yorker since 1996. His first book, The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, won a National Book Critics Circle Award and the Guardian First Book Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His second book, the essay collection Listen to This, won an ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award. His latest book is Wagnerism: Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music, an account of Wagner’s vast cultural impact. He is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and an Arts and Letters Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Alex Ross is member of the Advisory Board of the Thomas Mann House.
Forum Demokratie: „Democracy will win“? Dangers for Democracy
Berlin

Information
"Democracy will win" - with great persuasiveness Thomas Mann spoke this prognosis into the camera upon his arrival in U.S. exile in New York in 1938. He campaigned intensively for liberal democracy, especially from his Californian place of exile, and raised his voice against fascism and dictatorship. Today, when fundamental democratic values on both sides of the Atlantic are once again being called into question by populism and nationalism, Frido Mann, grandson of Thomas Mann, takes a close look at the symptoms of crisis in the democratic systems of both the United States and Europe in his latest book.
"Democracy means nothing other than making being human and human dignity possible," writes Frido Mann in "Democracy will win". Under the direction of Phoenix program director Michaela Kolster, Frido Mann and history professors Hedwig Richter and Manfred Görtemaker discuss how democracy can succeed in the 21st century and what recent history has to offer us in this regard. The special broadcast by VATMH and Phoenix asks about the dangers to democracy. What and who is putting democracy at risk? What challenges is it exposed to? And how can it resist these challenges?
Participants

Frido Mann is the grandson of Nobel Prize-winner Thomas Mann. He worked as a clinical psychologist and professor of psychology in Münster, Leipzig and Prague after studying music, catholic theology and psychology. Today, he lives as a freelance writer in Munich. He publishes essays and novels. Most recently, together with Christine Mann, Es werde Licht (2017) and Im Lichte der Quanten (2021). In his book Das Weiße Haus des Exils (2018), he recalls the Manns' political engagement in exile and confronts the question of what impact open dialogue can still have today. His most recent book is Democracy will win. Confessions of a Global Citizen (2021). Frido Mann was an Honorary Fellow at the Thomas Mann House. On several occasions during his childhood, he also spent extended periods of time at his grandparents' home in Pacific Palisades.

Prof. Dr. Hedwig Richter ist Professorin für Neuere und Neueste Geschichte an der Universität der Bundeswehr München. Ihre Forschung wurde unter anderem mit dem Anna-Krüger-Preis des Wissenschaftskollegs zu Berlin ausgezeichnet. Zu ihren Arbeitsschwerpunkten gehören Demokratie- und Diktaturgeschichte, deutsche, europäische und transatlantische Geschichte im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert und Geschlechterforschung. Zuletzt erschien von ihr bei Suhrkamp „Aufbruch in die Moderne. Reform und Massenpolitisierung im Kaiserreich. Berlin 2021“.

Prof. em. Dr. Manfred Görtemaker is Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at the University of Potsdam with a focus on contemporary history. He previously taught at the Università di Bologna, St Antony's College of the University of Oxford, Dartmouth College, and Duke University. His numerous publications include "Thomas Mann and Politics" (2005), "Britain and Germany in the Twentieth Century" (2006), "Germany and the West. Thoughts on the Twentieth Century." (2016). Most recently, he and Christoph Safferling published "Die Akte Rosenburg. The Federal Ministry of Justice and the Nazi Era." (2016)

Jürgen Trittin MdB has been a member of the Bundestag since 1998 and a member of the Green Party since 1980. From 1998 to 2005 he was Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, and from 2009 to 2013 he was chairman of the parliamentary group of Bündnis 90/Die Grünen. He studied social sciences in Göttingen. He is currently a full member of the Bundestag's Foreign Affairs Committee and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, and a deputy member of the Committee on European Union Affairs.
Michaela Kolster is ZDF's managing director of programming for the event and documentary channel PHOENIX in Bonn. Previously, she was, among other things, head of the ZDF studio North Rhine-Westphalia in Düsseldorf and correspondent in the ZDF capital studio Bonn and Berlin. She studied political science, Japanese studies and modern history in Bonn and Tokyo. She moderates the PHOENIX programs "unter den linden," "unter den linden spezial," "unter den linden persönlich," the Forum Demokratie as well as special broadcasts on federal and state elections and the European Parliament elections.
Details on the event (in German)
Nach §3 der Infektionsschutzverordnung, sind wir verpflichtet hier oder am Einlass persönliche Daten der Gäste zu erheben. Diese werden 30 Tage gespeichert und nach Ablauf der Zeit automatisch gelöscht.
Mit Ihrer Teilnahme erklären Sie sich mit der Veröffentlichung von Fotografien und Videos durch VATMH e.V. einverstanden, die im Rahmen der Veranstaltung ggfs. von Ihnen erstellt werden.
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Die Redebeiträge werden nicht in DGS übersetzt.
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Stand 24.09.2021
Das nachstehende Hygienekonzept gilt als Handlungsanweisung für alle an künstlerischen Veranstaltungen beteiligten Personen im Rahmen der Ausstellung "all the lonely people" und ihres Rahmenprogramms. Es orientiert sich an dem Hygienerahmenkonzept der Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa, an den Empfehlungen des Robert-Koch-Institutes, den Arbeitsschutzstandards des Bundesministeriums für Arbeit und Soziales sowie der Handlungsempfehlung des Research Institute for Exhibition and Live-Communication (R.I.F.E.L.) und dem DEHOGA Bundesverband. Entsprechend der aktuellen Entwicklung und Forschungslage werden einzelne Punkte oder das gesamte Konzept ggf. laufend aktualisiert und angepasst.
Anmeldung / Vorverkauf und Kasse
Kontaktloser Kartenkauf: Karten können online und vor Ort gekauft werden. Alle Karten werden elektronisch verschickt (auch Pressekarten, Gästeliste und freie Begleitkarten). Es gibt vor Ort eine Kasse. Zur Kontaktvermeidung bitten wir jedoch darum, Tickets im Vorfeld online zu erstehen.
Kontaktdatenerfassung: Zur Nachverfolgung im Infektionsfall sind wir verpflichtet, die Kontaktdaten aller Besucher:innen aufzunehmen. Die Daten werden datenschutzkonform gespeichert und nach vier Wochen gelöscht.
Getestet/Geimpft/Genesen (3G): Bitte beachten Sie, dass eine Teilnahme an Veranstaltungen von VATMH nur unter Nachweis eines aktuellen negativen Ergebnisses eines Antigen Schnelltests oder PCR-Tests möglich ist (nicht älter als 24 Stunden). Der Testnachweis muss Angaben über das Datum und die Uhrzeit des Tests enthalten, sowie den Namen der getesteten Person und der Stelle, die den Test durchgeführt hat. Ausgenommen hiervon sind vollständig gegen COVID-19 geimpfte Personen und Genesene, deren Infektion mindestens 28 Tage zurückliegt, aber nicht länger als sechs Monate. Beides ist durch entsprechende Nachweise zu belegen.
Bitte berücksichtigen Sie, dass eine Teilnahme an der Veranstaltung nicht möglich ist, wenn Sie in den letzten 14 Tagen Kontakt zu einer an COVID-19 erkrankten Person hatten oder selbst an einem Infekt der oberen Atemwege leiden.
Vor Veranstaltungen
Alle Besucher:innen sind dazu angehalten, während Ihres gesamten Aufenthalts am Veranstaltungsort stets eine medizinische Maske ohne Ventil (FFP2 oder OP) zu tragen. Auf den Sitzplätzen zur gastronomischen Verpflegung sowie auf Sitzplätzen bei Veranstaltungen auf dem Außengelände kann die Maske abgelegt werden. Auf den Gebrauch von Fächern muss im gesamten Gebäude verzichtet werden, da das Zufächern von Luft zu einer Verbreitung von Aerosolen beiträgt.
Der Publikumsverkehr ist über ein ausgeschildertes Einbahnstraßensystem geregelt, um den reibungslosen Publikumsfluss und die Einhaltung der gebotenen Abstände kümmert sich zusätzlich das Einlasspersonal.
Zugangskontrolle
Unser Einlasspersonal kontrolliert die Anmeldung/Eintrittskarten sowie die negativen Test-, Impf- oder Genesungsnachweise in der Regel direkt am Zugang zum Veranstaltungsort.
Alle Karten müssen digital oder ausgedruckt vorgezeigt und kontaktlos gescannt werden. Die Test-, Impf- und Genesungsnachweise müssen in lesbarer Form vorgezeigt werden, reine QR-Codes können nicht anerkannt werden.
Gastronomie/Catering
Bei der Durchführung des Caterings werden folgende Schutzmaßnahmen umgesetzt:
- Einbahnstraßensystem an der Cateringstation
- Möglichkeit zur Händedesinfektion an der Essensausgabe
- Abtrennung/Spuckschutz aus Plexiglas o.ä. Material zwischen Speisen und Kunden.
- Ausgabe der Speisen durch Cateringpersonal.
Gebrauchte Gläser, Besteck und Geschirr werden maschinell mit Temperaturen von 60 Grad Celsius oder ähnlich wirksamen Methodengereinigt.
Sanitäre Anlagen
Für die Dauer der Veranstaltung findet eine laufende Reinigung statt. Häufig oder wechselnd genutzte Kontaktflächen werden in regelmäßigen Intervallen desinfiziert. Bodenflächen werden arbeitstäglich und zusätzlich nach optischem Verunreinigungsgrad gereinigt. Die Reinigung der Sanitärbereiche erfolgt ebenfalls in erhöhter Taktung sowie bei Bedarf.
Während der Veranstaltungen
Am Platz
Unsere Gäste sind dazu angehalten bei Veranstaltungen in geschlossenen Räumen auch am Platz stets eine FFP2-Maske ohne Ventil zu tragen. Eine Ausnahme stellen Veranstaltungen im Außenbereich dar, bei denen unsere Gäste Ihre Masken am Platz abnehmen können. Auf den Gebrauch von Fächern muss am Platz verzichtet werden, da das Zufächern von Luft zu einer Verbreitung von Aerosolen beiträgt.
Zusätzliche Maßnahmen
Während der gesamten Veranstaltung befindet sich eine Person vom Einlasspersonal vor Ort, um behilflich zu sein, wenn Besucher:innen den Raum vorzeitig verlassen möchten.
Lüften
Um die Virenlast durch Aerosole zu verringern, wird der gesamte Veranstaltungsraum, entsprechend den Vorgaben des Senats, regelmäßig gelüftet.
Verlassen des Veranstaltungsraumes
Nach der Veranstaltung erfolgt der Auslass gleichzeitig über so viele Ausgänge wie möglich. Während der gesamten Auslassphase bleiben die genutzten Türen geöffnet, um auch hier ein Anfassen der Klinken zu vermeiden.
Sonstiges
Kontaktnachverfolgung
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On Difference, Inclusion and Innovation: Decoding the Myths of Silicon Valley
Thomas Mann House (1550 N San Remo Drive Pacific Palisades, CA 90272)

Information
There is hardly any other place in the world where digital technology and culture are as closely intertwined and at the same time as diverse as in California. Since the emergence of digital culture, it has been interspersed with myths and ideals, some of which guide action, others of which are used to publicly justify business models. Journalist and Thomas Mann Fellow Magdalena Kröner will talk with literary scholar Adrian Daub and entrepreneur Mia Dand about the role that values such as difference, inclusion, and innovation play in Silicon Valley and the extent to which they are actually realized.
By invitation only.
Participants

Mia Dand is the CEO of Lighthouse3, a strategic research and advisory firm based in Oakland, California. Mia advises large organizations on responsible innovation at scale with new & emerging tech like Artificial Intelligence (AI). She has a successful track record of leading complex cross-functional programs at the intersection of business, data, and governance for global companies. Mia is the founder of the global Women in AI Ethics initiative, creator of the annual 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics list, and Women in AI Ethics online directory, the leading resource for recognition, recruitment, and empowerment of talented women in this space.

Adrian Daub is a professor of comparative literature and German studies at Stanford University, and the director of Stanford’s Program in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. His research focuses on the intersection of literature, music, and philosophy in the nineteenth century, and he is the author of several books published by academic presses. His writing has appeared in The Guardian, The New Republic, n+1, Longreads, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. His most recent book is What Tech Calls Thinking: An Inquiry into the Intellectual Bedrock of Silicon Valley (FSG Originals x Logic, 2020).

Magdalena Kröner works as an essayist and art critic in Düsseldorf and the U. S. Her writing has appeared in publications such as Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Frankfurter Allgemeine Quarterly, Monopol, and Die Zeit. Since 2016, she focuses increasingly on the semantics and ethics of digital culture and technologies. She just started a new series of essays for Kunstforum International: Digital Bodies - the new image of man at the interface of technology, art and body politics. Magdalena Kröner is a 2021 Thomas Mann Fellow.
Beyond the Virgin Land
Thomas Mann House (1550 N San Remo Drive Pacific Palisades, CA 90272)

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In her latest novel, Something New Under the Sun, New York-based author Alexandra Kleeman tells the story of a novelist who discovers the dark side of Hollywood. She describes a California scarred by droughts and forest fires, where only the rich can afford to survive.
In conversation with Heike Paul, American Studies Scholar and 2021 Thomas Mann House Fellow, Kleeman will reflect on old and new myths of the American West. What role does Hollywood play in those mythical hopes and longings, but also in their disenchantment? What makes Hollywood such a special place to reflect on the state of the country and the world? And what can literature contribute to rewriting cultural imaginaries that make a sustainable future imaginable - and realizable?
By invitation only.
Participants

Alexandra Kleeman is the author of the novels Something New Under the Sun (2021) and You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine (2016), which was named an Editor's Choice by The New York Times. Her fiction has been published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Zoetrope, Conjunctions, and Guernica, among others. Other works have appeared in Harper's, The New York Times Magazine, Vogue, Tin House, n+1, and The Guardian. She is a winner of the Berlin Prize and the Bard Fiction Prize and was a fellow at the American Academy in Rome. Kleeman lives in Staten Island and teaches at The New School.

Heike Paul is Professor of American Studies, with a focus on North American literature and Cultural Studies at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. Her research interests in the field of a culturally hermeneutically oriented American Studies deal, among other things, with cultural patterns of community formation in the United States. She was awarded the Leibniz Prize in 2018 and the Order of Maximilian for Science and Art in 2021. Her publications include: American Citizenship Sentimentalism (2021), The Myths That Made America (2014), and Cultural Contact and Racial Presences: African Americans and German American Literature, 1815-1914 (2005).
The Regime of the Charlatan
Thomas Mann House (1550 N San Remo Drive Pacific Palisades, CA 90272)

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Political scientist Claus Leggewie and literary scholar Veronika Fuechtner get into a conversation about the fascinating power of charlatans, their techniques and the people who surrender to them. The figure of the charlatan, who feigns abilities and deceives others, runs through the history of literature as well as politics. What makes it so difficult to unmask and fight charlatans to this day?
The background foil for the conversation is Thomas Mann's novella Mario and the Magician, which Mann wrote after a trip to fascist Italy. Years later, it prompted author Grete De Francesco to write her comprehensive study The Power of the Charlatan, which has recently received renewed attention. The conversation will be moderated by Alexandra Lieben.
By invitation only.
Participants

Veronika Fuechtner is Chair of Jewish Studies and Associate Professor of German Studies at Dartmouth. She is the author of Berlin Psychoanalytic (2011) and the co-editor of Imagining Germany, Imagining Asia (with Mary Rhiel, 2013) and A Global History of Sexual Science 1880-1960 (with Douglas E. Haynes and Ryan Jones, 2017). She is completing a monograph on Thomas Mann's Brazilian mother and Mann's construction of race and "Germanness." In spring 2020 she was a Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin.

Claus Leggewie is a political scientist and Ludwig-Börne-Professor at the University of Gießen. He directed the Cultural Studies Institute in Essen for ten years and was a visiting professor at the University of Paris-Nanterre and the New York University (Max Weber Chair). His books include Breivik, Dugin, al-Suri & Co (2016), co-authored with Patricia Nanz, The Consultative: More Democracy through Citizen Participation (2018), and most recently, co-authored with Federic Hanusch and Erik Meyer, Thinking Planetary (2021). He is a 2021 Honorary Fellow at the Thomas Mann House.

Alexandra Lieben is the Deputy Director of the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations – and lecturer at the Luskin School of Public Affairs. She has served as faculty advisory on several social impact projects at the UCLA Anderson School of Management and teaches crisis de-escalation, conflict resolution, and cultural competency to UCLA students and professionals in the public and the private sector. She is a member of the Thomas Mann House Advisory Board.