Between Nostalgia and Freedom: Reflection on Immigrant Arts
The Immigrant/Stranger remains a key figure of the twentieth and twenty-first century modernity. At the same time experience of immigration complicate and embarrass our theoretical metaphors bringing in inconvenient political and personal histories. The immigrant is always a trickster who balances the experience of loss with an improbable hope. Svetlana Boym is Professor of Comparative Literature and Associate of Harvard School of Design and Architecture at Harvard University. Writer, theorist and artist, she is the author of The Future of Nostalgia (2001), Architecture of the Off-Modern (2008), Ninochka (a novel, 2003) and, most recently, Another Freedom: The Alternative History of an Idea (2011). >>More...
Just published / Soeben erschienen: IWM Program 2012
The new IWM Program informs you about this year’s research, programs, fellows and events. It is available for reading >>here.
The New Class Divide and the American Election
There is a new and growing class divide in the U.S. But what are its fundamental causes? And how will it affect the upcoming presidential election? Columbia university professor, historian of ideas, and famous essayist Mark Lilla analyses the emerging rival narratives about the present, which form a new cleavage in American society. >>More...
Russian Society in Quest of its Path for Freedom
At the end of November 2011, a week before the parliamentary elections, journalists, sociologists and political analysts alike unanimously were pointing out the total public apathy and the absence of civil society in Russia. In a fortnight however, a protest movement emerged and kept growing, reaching its culmination in March 2012, during the Russian presidential campaign. Why could neither experts, nor authorities predict such a political disturbance? How has the social activism accumulated and formed in the depths of Russian society? What are the challenges that Russian society is facing in its struggle with an authoritarian regime? Irina Prokhorova, literary critic and cultural historian, who became actively engaged in the recent presidential campaign, will offer her reading on these questions on May 8 (Tuesday) at 18:30 in IWM. More...
Säkular oder postsäkular
Die Religion ist in aller Munde, gleich ob ihre „Wiederkehr“ gefeiert oder die „Abkehr“ von ihr ausgerufen wird. Wie wir’s heute mit der Religion halten, hat viel mit unserem Verständnis der modernen Gesellschaft zu tun. Hierzu sind insbesondere die jüngeren Arbeiten von Jürgen Habermas und Charles Taylor aufschlussreich, die geradezu gegenläufige Diagnosen stellen: Während Taylor von einem „säkularen Zeitalter“ spricht, identifiziert Habermas demgegenüber eine „postsäkulare Kultur“. Diese beiden gegenläufigen Diagnosen diskuitiert am 3. Mai der Soziologe Martin Endreß in der Reihe "Beyond Myth and Enlightenment. Re-thinking Religion in the Modern World". >>Mehr...
The Immigrant/Stranger remains a key figure of the twentieth and twenty-first century modernity. At the same time experience of immigration complicate and embarrass our theoretical metaphors bringing in inconvenient political and personal histories. The immigrant is always a trickster who balances the experience of loss with an improbable hope.
The new IWM Program informs you about this year’s research, programs, fellows and events. It is available for reading 
There is a new and growing class divide in the U.S. But what are its fundamental causes? And how will it affect the upcoming presidential election? Columbia university professor, historian of ideas, and famous essayist 
At the end of November 2011, a week before the parliamentary elections, journalists, sociologists and political analysts alike unanimously were pointing out the total public apathy and the absence of civil society in Russia. In a fortnight however, a protest movement emerged and kept growing, reaching its culmination in March 2012, during the Russian presidential campaign. Why could neither experts, nor authorities predict such a political disturbance? How has the social activism accumulated and formed in the depths of Russian society? What are the challenges that Russian society is facing in its struggle with an authoritarian regime?
Die Religion ist in aller Munde, gleich ob ihre „Wiederkehr“ gefeiert oder die „Abkehr“ von ihr ausgerufen wird. Wie wir’s heute mit der Religion halten, hat viel mit unserem Verständnis der modernen Gesellschaft zu tun. Hierzu sind insbesondere die jüngeren Arbeiten von Jürgen Habermas und Charles Taylor aufschlussreich, die geradezu gegenläufige Diagnosen stellen: Während Taylor von einem „säkularen Zeitalter“ spricht, identifiziert Habermas demgegenüber eine „postsäkulare Kultur“. Diese beiden gegenläufigen Diagnosen diskuitiert am 3. Mai der Soziologe 
