Freedom of the arts is essential for any democracy, but what role do the arts play when democracies come under pressure? This concert and dance performance by Miro Magloire’s New Chamber Ballet took a leap from mid-century composers into the present. Featuring music by Ursula Mamlok, Tania León, and Alyssa Regent. Moderated by Carl Bettendorf.

Freedom of the arts is essential for any democracy, but what role do the arts play when democracies come under pressure? This performance at the Austrian Cultural Forum New York for Songs from Exile presented works of Ruth Schonthal and Erich Zeisl.

Freedom of the arts is essential for any democracy, but what role do the arts play when democracies come under pressure? This concert performance brought us to the Center for Jewish History, Leo Baeck Institute New York for Songs from Exile with works by Rosy Geiger-Kullmann, Paul Aron, and Ernst Toch - introducing two German-Jewish composers in American exile: Paul Aron and Rosy Geiger-Kullmann, with world premiere performances.

Freedom of the arts is essential for any democracy, but what role do the arts play when democracies come under pressure? Join us at Goethe-Institut New York for “Opera and Democracy” by Kai Hinrich Müller, exploring the past and present of being forced out of a country or a home and the struggles to continue artistic practices elsewhere. Featuring Brigid Cohen, Associate Professor of Music at New York University; Gracie Golden, Artistic Freedom Initiative’s Senior Officer for Strategic Initiatives & Relocation; and Michael P. Steinberg, professor of history and music, German studies, and author of “The Afterlife of Moses: Exile, Democracy, Renewal”.

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Democracies seem to be wilting from lack of genuine interchange and compromise. How can educators support explorations of controversial subjects in ways that engage people’s hearts as well as minds? What tools of critique build connections rather than obstacles between people? Legal scholar Martha Minow and choreographer, educator and writer Liz Lerman discussed such questions and offered examples that show how developing our capacities to find new routes and pathways to each other can be taken from classrooms and seminar rooms into the wider world. Moderated by Professor Irene Kacandes, Dartmouth College.

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This trans-Atlantic conversation about migration, part of a series called Humanities for Humans presented in partnership with the Walter de Gruyter Foundation (Berlin), explored current migration trends, why they are happening, and how the role of so-called “race” have influenced the history of migration. Featuring Legal Scholar and Dr. Kathryn Abrams, University of California, Berkeley and Migration and Racism Expert and Independent Scholar Dr. Mark Terkessidis, Berlin, Germany. Moderated by Professor Irene Kacandes, Dartmouth College.

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At a time when there is talk of "fake news" and "alternative facts", the question arises as to the role and status of truth in democracy. In conversation with the historian Sophia Rosenfeld (UPenn), Alexander Görlach discussed truth and probability, science and faith in liberal democracy.

Organized with generous support by the Kurt Forrest Foundation.

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This conversation about gender, part of a series called Humanities for Humans presented in partnership with the Walter de Gruyter Foundation (Berlin), explored the dichotomy of the loosening up of social values and prohibitions around non-normative expressions of embodiment, and the prevention and banning of gender affirming care and sex education sweeping the U.S. Poet Meg Fernandes and cultural critic Jack Halberstam discussed gender identification and sexual styles. Moderated by Irene Kacandes, Dartmouth College.

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Alexander Görlach and philosopher Markus Gabriel discussed the foundations of a liberal anthropology: Can people have freedom, and if so, how much? Does technology help or does it impose invisible shackles on humankind? Ultimately, the "elephant in the room" is the question of whether liberal democracy has a future.

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Like the US, Germany has seen the rapid growth and radicalization of domestic right-wing movements. Racist, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories are actively imported over the Atlantic and influence the political debate in Germany. In conversation with Steven Sokol, President of the American Council on Germany (ACG), Ricarda Lang discussed her party’s efforts to counter the rise of anti-democratic forces in Germany, Europe, and across Atlantic, and to rebuild trust in democracy.

The discussion aimed to draw out shared lessons for democratic actors on both sides of the Atlantic, as they confront this common challenge to their democracies.

This trans-Atlantic conversation about acts of mourning and memorialization, part of a series called Humanities for Humans presented in partnership with the Walter de Gruyter Foundation (Berlin), explored the legacies of structural racism, inequality, war, poverty, and climate change following the COVID-19 pandemic. Featuring Professor Marianne Hirsch, who writes about the transmission of memories of violence across generations; and Hortense J. Spillers, the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor Emerita of English at Vanderbilt University. Moderated by Professor Irene Kacandes, German Studies and Comparative Literature, Dartmouth College.

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This conversation, co-hosted with The Urban Activist, explored what activism means to people, its power to create positive change, and how it has been evolving over the past decades. Featuring Co-Founder and Executive Director of Street Lab New York Leslie Davol; award-winning policy advocate, liberation and food activist Eloísa Trinidad; Baltimore based photographer and educator Devin Allen; and academic-activist and advocate for fair digital labor practices Trebor Scholz. Moderated by Sarah Seidman, Puffin Foundation Gallery Curator of Social Activism at the Museum of the City of New York and the curator for the ongoing exhibition “Activist New York".

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This trans-Atlantic conversation, part of a series called Humanities for Humans presented in partnership with the Walter de Gruyter Foundation (Berlin), explored differing definitions of inequality. While we might believe that all humans are created equal, socially defined characteristics confer or withhold concrete privileges and opportunities that profoundly shape the quality of individual lives. How do scholars define inequality? Featuring historian Robin D.G. Kelley, Distinguished Professor and Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History at the University of California in Los Angeles, and cultural studies scholar Bruce Robbins, Old Dominion Foundation Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University. This talk was moderated by Professor Irene Kacandes, German Studies and Comparative Literature, Dartmouth College.

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This discussion, hosted in partnership with Goethe-Institut New York and Thomas Mann House Los Angeles, explored Black feminism in a trans-Atlantic context, examining the lived experience of Black women in the USA and Europe. Featuring Alice Hasters, German journalist, author, and podcaster; and Morgan Jerkins, 2023 Fellow at the Thomas Mann House Los Angeles and bestselling author.

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As part of their virtual series Democracies Under Pressure: Challenges for the Global Liberal Order, ACG and 1014 hosted another discussion about the economic and social impact of the simultaneous crises we are facing. Featuring Prof. Dr. h.c. Jutta Allmendinger, President, WZB Berlin Social Science Center and Professor of Educational Sociology and Labor Market Research, Humboldt University in Berlin; and Dr. Adam Tooze, Shelby Cullom Davis Chair of History and Director of the European Institute, Columbia University. Moderated by journalist Ines Pohl, Washington bureau chief for Deutsche Welle.

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This trans-Atlantic conversation about climate change, part of a series called Humanities for Humans presented in partnership with the Walter de Gruyter Foundation (Berlin), explored ancient and modern views of human relations to the earth from disciplines as seemingly different as legal studies and art, geography and ethics and from places as different as North America, Europe and Southeast Asia. Featuring Prof. Harriet Hawkins, Co-Director of the Royal Holloway Centre for the GeoHumanities, University of London, and Director of Techne, and Prof. Rebecca Tsosie, James E. Rogers College of Law at the University of Arizona. Moderated by Irene Kacandes, Professor of German Studies and Comparative Literature, Dartmouth College.

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As part of their virtual series Democracies Under Pressure: Challenges for the Global Liberal Order, ACG and 1014 hosted another discussion about how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February recalibrated the attention of the transatlantic community toward Europe. Featuring Sinologists Dr. Kristin Shi-Kupfer, Professor for Sinology at the University of Trier and a Senior Associate Fellow at MERICS; and Yun Sun, Senior Fellow and Co-Director of the East Asia Program and Director of the China Program at the Stimson Center.

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As part of their virtual series Democracies under Pressure: Challenges for the Global Liberal Order, ACG and 1014 hosted another discussion about the economic implications of the Ukraine war. Featuring experts Ambassador Ertharin Cousin, CEO and Managing Director, Food Systems for the Future; former Executive Director, United Nations World Food Program; and Alexander Müller, Managing Director, TMG Think Tank for Sustainability.

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As part of their virtual series Democracies under Pressure: Challenges for the Global Liberal Order, ACG and 1014 hosted another discussion about how authoritarianism and authoritarian regimes are gaining more traction around the world. Featuring experts Dr. John Glenn, Senior Director of the National Endowment for Democracy’s International Forum for Democratic Studies; and Sarah Pagung, Associate Fellow in the International Order and Democracy Program at the German Council on Foreign Relations.

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The aim of the presentation by Andreas Reckwitz was to develop an outline of a sociology of loss. Paul Kottman, Professor of Comparative Literature and chair of Liberal Studies at The New School for Social Research, introduced Reckwitz and moderated a discussion. Presented in cooperation with the DFG German Research Foundation and Thomas Mann House.

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In this roundtable, participants discussed the origins of harm reduction, emerging practices in dense urban areas, and the continual methods of engagement that maintain harm reduction as a medically-focused movement, a social service, and an ongoing practice of safely practicing substance use. Featuring Tamara Oyola-Santiago (Bronx Móvil, New York), Sebastian Bayer (Fixpunkt, Berlin), Machteld Busz (Mainline, Amsterdam), Ashley Quinones (New York), Celia Joyce (New York), Nancy Campbell (Rensselaer, New York), Moderated by Thomas Bürk and Tori Gruber.

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This roundtable critically explored how the memories and struggles of people who use drugs and those of other marginalized and/or activist groups in history are represented in archives, museums, and collective memory at large. Featuring Machteld Busz (Stories from the Drug Closet, Amsterdam), Kenneth Cobb (Municipal Archives, New York), Jen Hoyer and Brooke Shuman (Interference Archive, New York), Kimberly Springer (Oral History Archives at Columbia, New York). Moderated by: Stefan Höhne (Narcotic City Archive, Essen).

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This roundtable explored how, on both sides of the Atlantic, drug use is a highly contested issue in urban public space. How have conflicts around public drug use impacted the social and cultural fabric of cities in the late 20th and early 21st centuries? How are urban policies intertwined with addiction treatment and police interventions of contested sites? Featuring Gemma Blok (Open University, Netherlands), Samuel K. Roberts (Columbia University, New York), Matthew Vaz (CUNY, New York), Frederieke Westerheide (Halle University Halle). Moderated by Stefan Höhne (KWI Essen).

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As part of their virtual series Democracies Under Pressure: Challenges for the Global Liberal Order, ACG and 1014 hosted another discussion about the broader implications of the war in Ukraine. Featuring Dr. Alexander Cooley, Claire Tow Professor of Political Science and Vice Provost for Academic Centers and Libraries at Barnard College and Academy Adjunct Faculty at Chatham House; and Prof. Dr. Gwendolyn Sasse, Director of the Centre for East European and International Studies (ZOiS) and Einstein Professor for the Comparative Study of Democracy and Authoritarianism at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

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This trans-Atlantic conversation, part of a series called Humanities for Humans presented in partnership with the Walter de Gruyter Foundation (Berlin), explored how charges of being racist or fascist have filled the airwaves, cyberspace, and private and public discussions in our times of heightened crisis brought on by ultra-partisan politics and local and state violence. Featuring Professor Michael Hanchard, Political Scientist, University of Pennsylvania, and Professor Dagmar Herzog, Historian, CUNY Graduate School. Moderated by Irene Kacandes, Professor of German Studies and Comparative Literature, Dartmouth College.

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In the globalized world of the 21st century, solving problems alone seems no longer sufficient and cultural and inter-cultural competencies are being added to the target specifications of a successful engineer. Featuring Julika Griem, Director of the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities (KWI Essen); Myles W. Jackson, Albers-Schönberg Professor in the History of Science at Princeton University’s Institute for Advance Study (IAS); Jelena Kovačević, Dean of the NYU Tandon School of Engineering; and Pamela H. Smith, Seth Low Professor of History at Columbia University, Director of the Center for Science and Society. Moderated by Kurt Becker.

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Whether it is the war in Ukraine, Covid-19, or climate change -- crises seem to have become the norm in our globalized, digitally-connected world. This state of global uncertainty is accompanied by the widespread perception of an increasingly divided society. According to critical observers, this division manifests itself primarily in the ever-increasing polarization of public discourse. Featuring journalist and author Masha Gessen; journalist, senior research associate at Cambridge University Alexander Görlach; and award-winning writer Prachi Gupta.

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The "Transatlantic Media Forum" was a one-day German-American gathering of fifteen renowned experts and journalists in New York City. Across three "Strategic Roundtables", the format allowed for in-depth deliberations wherein we discussed the media and techno-economic mechanisms that cause and perpetuate each of today’s major crises - regardless of their respective content. How can we achieve resilience under these conditions? With Sham Jaff, Anna Romandash, Delia Baldassarri, Paulina Fröhlich, Alison (Ali) Goldsworthy, Ulises Ali Mejias, Alexander Sängerlaub, Christoph Bieber.

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In this panel, featuring Elizabeth Hamilton of Fort Valley State University, Lukas Feireiss of Berlin University of the Arts, and Damon Bradley of DeepSpace Technologies, speakers examined and discussed several works of space art and their import to human society at various times and places. What can these works tell us about those who produced them, their contemporary times, and now our own? Curated and moderated by Nick Travaglini (Liberal Studies - The New School), Co-Chair of New School Policy and Design for Outer Space (NSPDOS) of Students for the Exploration and Development of Space.

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Should people go into outer space? What about returning to the moon, or perhaps going even further to other celestial bodies? These questions regained a sense of urgency in the mainstream with the so-called “Billionaire Space Race” of 2021 and the steady drumbeat of space-related news throughout the year. To consider these questions, we brought together researcher and designer Angeliki Kapoglou, scientist and musician Divya Persaud, and engineer and writer Joalda Morancy. Curated and moderated by Nick Travaglini (Liberal Studies - The New School), Co-Chair of New School Policy and Design for Outer Space (NSPDOS) of Students for the Exploration and Development of Space.

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