Upcoming Events

Series: Seminars and Colloquia

Kazimir Malevich (1878-1935) is usually perceived as a revolutionary and iconoclast. His position is often presented in the light of Communism or Leninism. Several researchers have argued that Malevich’s “new theology” developed from glorifying God into extolling Lenin. In her talk, Tatiana Levina will begin with analysing Malevich’s “Cult of Lenin” and present his ideas on the Communist leader. She will juxtapose these with the metaphysical ideas he discusses in his tractate on Suprematism and show his position within the circle of the Russian religious philosophy instead. Malevich’s intellectual parallels with religious philosophers Pavel Florensky (1882-1937), Sergey Bulgakov (1871-1944), and many others would be the main focus of her talk. He has not usually been perceived as a worshipper of the divine, and she will show his way of glorifying God relying on Meister Eckhart’s negative theology and Gregory Palamas’s hesychasm. His revolutionary rhetoric during the first years of the Communist state, rather, served as an appeal to platonism and idealism. 

Series: Seminars and Colloquia

The Transatlantic relationship between Europe and the United States is being challenged in a variety of ways. The situation in Southeastern Europe and Turkey adds to this complexity but also opens alleys for cooperation. Foreign malign influence is growing in the candidate-countries of the Western Balkans, highlighting the vacuum and the economic, security and environmental risks created after the recent “deepening-before-widening [of the European Union]” policy shift that has put the accession processes on hold. In the immediate vicinity, Turkey has been going through cycles of internal and external conflicts that have further strained relations with the European Union already damaged by the effective removal of Turkey’s accession prospects. This session will offer detailed insight and expert viewsfrom two of 2021-22 Europe’s Futures Fellows Valbona Zeneli and Soli Özel. In a conversation facilitated by Ivan Vejvoda, they will examine the routes for the Western Balkans’ candidate-countries to be drawn closer – and in - to the European Union, as well as the likely scenarios for future political developments in Turkey.

Series: Panels and Discussions

The panel will address the results of the elections from three regions of Europe by researchers who are this year's Europe's Futures Fellows, together with a view from Berlin offered by the research director of the German Council for Foreign Relations DGAP.

Series: Panels and Discussions

Die beiden Autoren Rainer Bauböck und Gerd Valchars sprechen mit Nina Hoarczek und Heinz Meyer über die Ergebnisse ihres soeben erschienenen Buches sowie insbesondere über die Wichtigkeit des Zugangs zu Staatsbürgerschaft und die Akzeptanz von Doppelstaatsbürgerschaften.

Series: Lecture

To mark the publication of the English language version of The Ratline, which follows his prize-winning book East West Street, Philippe Sands explores the ideas that underpin his new work, an account of the lives of Otto von Wächter, an Austrian SS Gruppenführer indicted for mass murder, and his wife Charlotte, from the moment they met Vienna in April 1929 to his unexpected death in Rome in 1949. The lecture is built around a set of deeply personal stories that explore the role of justice, the legacy of memory across generations, and the impulses that generate our search for truth.

Series: Lecture

The Cartesian mind/body dualism that has come to dominate western thinking for centuries has an unacknowledged affinity with the split in sovereign power that once characterized the king’s two bodies. In this medieval political theology the king is said to have both a physical-temporal body that eventually dies and another body that represents the politically sovereign and eternal body. Secularized Cartesian mind/body dualism, where the mind becomes an eternal force of reason acting within a corrupted embodied existence, the king’s two bodies reflect a hierarchical imposition of dominance that justifies a more deeply engrained master/slave duality.

Series: Conferences and Workshops

"Der Mensch für sich allein vermag gar wenig und ist ein
verlassener Robinson; nur in der Gemeinschaft mit den
andern vermag er viel."
Arthur Schopenhauer