Events

Few people in the West’s established democracies question democracy as a form of government in itself. Yet there is fierce disagreement over what “democracy” actually means. Is a country democratic when the majority can impose whatever political agenda it chooses? Or is democracy defined by strong, constitutionally enshrined institutions, such as the Federal Constitutional Court in Germany or the US Supreme Court, which ensure minority rights are protected as well? And what happened to the promise of liberal democracy that everyone is free in the pursuit of happiness? In the age of digital capitalism, has that promise not produced quasi-absolutist concentrations of power in the hands of a small number of tech entrepreneurs, reducing the people, the actual demos, to an easily manipulated mass of “users” and consumers?

America’s foremost historian, Jill Lepore, and Christina Morina, a leading German historian, discuss the risks and perils facing democracy in the United States and in Germany today.

Radka Denemarková and Jaroslav Rudiš, two central voices in contemporary Czech literature, discuss rushing trains, talking graves, and why the history of Central Europe refuses to let us go.

Everyone is exhausted; no one really believes in anything anymore. Still, religion’s everywhere: in politics, in global conflicts, and in everyday life. Nora Bossong and Hamed Abdel-Samad approach the same question from different directions: What does faith do to us when it provides support? And what happens when it’s weaponized? A discussion on the search for meaning, power, and just how much religion an exhausted age can take.

One might have thought the issue was settled. But it ain’t. Nora Eckert, Joachim Helfer, and Marco Linguri discuss queer life in Germany in the present day, in the wake of the attack on Berlin Pride, which has raised the questions of safety and self-determination anew. Looking back at queer history in both West and East Germany and asking what space queer life can find within Islam, they explore where acceptance and threats truly stand today.

Three people, one country, and an open question: Paula Fürstenberg, Manja Präkels, and Hendrik Bolz discuss what remains now that the grand narrative of German unity has long since begun to fracture. No nostalgia, no East-West clichés. Just three perspectives on origins, chance, and why people sometimes feel like strangers in their own country. A conversation for anyone who has ever wondered whether this sense of togetherness ever truly existed.

The neighbors you know. And don’t know at all. Eva Menasse and Shida Bazyar look to where things get uncomfortable: on the street, the communal hallway, and the familiar village that suddenly seems strange. In their latest novels, Alleinruhelage and Die Lücken, the two authors write about belonging and its opposite, pointedly, unflinchingly, and without offering any faux reconciliation. A conversation about who truly belongs and who merely imagines that they do.

Everyone is outraged all the time. About everything. Saba-Nur Cheema, Wolf Iro, and Omid Nouripour ask whether any of this is getting us anywhere. Or whether we are simply shouting at one another until no one is listening anymore. Three sharp minds offer three different answers to the question of how we can disagree without burning down the house. A conversation about anger, conviction, and the art of being right without destroying everything in the process.

Where do you stand on war? It is a question few people felt they had to ask themselves in the past—but now they do. Mithu Sanyal approaches the subject through literature and the essay; Simon Engel lives it as an officer in the German Armed Forces, for whom the question is anything but theoretical. Two people, two approaches, and no easy answers. A conversation about duty, conviction, and what each of us would be prepared to stand up for when things get serious.