Richard Holbrooke
Hans Arnhold Center
Kissinger Prize
Max Beckmann Auction

UPCOMING

Humanities

Cold War Modern: Musical Systems and Cultural Diplomacy in Rome and New York, 1945-55

Milton Babbitt and Elliott Carter were two prominent twentieth-century American composers who played decisive roles in defining musical complexity. Both were involved in shaping import systems for European modernism and export systems for difficult American modern music in the era of the Marshall Plan. In discussing their influence, Martin Brody will suggest relationships between cultural politics, music patronage, formalist theories, and the often challenging aesthetics of modern music during the Cold War. more >>
Social Sciences

European Civilization and Its Andalusian Discontent

Charles Hirschkind's project centers around the following questions: How do historical narratives about Spain’s Islamic heritage shape the vantage point from which contemporary questions about Europe’s Muslim minorities are addressed? How do the historical sensibilities, attitudes, and practices that ambivalently link the Spanish nation to its Muslim past open up a unique set of present possibilities for conceptualizing and addressing the so-called “Muslim problem” in Europe today? A look at the social and political processes that mediate and sustain an active relation to Europe’s Islamic heritage. more >>
Humanities

Über die Moral bei Kant und Freud

In der fünften Ausgabe von HEAD TO HEAD sprechen Philosophen Béatrice Longuenesse und Rolf-Peter Horstmann über die Moral bei Kant und Freud. Kant zufolge sind moralische Motive auf Vernunft gegründet. Laut Freud dagegen beruhen moralische Motive auf frühen emotionalen Abhängigkeiten des Kleinkindes gegenüber seinen Eltern. Trotz dieser widerstreitenden Erklärungen bieten Kant und Freud zum Teil überraschend ähnliche Einsichten über das Verhältnis von Vernunft und Gefühl in der Struktur moralischer Motive.  more >>

BLOG

Published in Arts and Culture

Announcing the Inga Maren Otto Fellowship in Music Composition

A new prize in music composition brings outstanding American composers to Berlin for a year of creative endeavor

On the evening of May 16, 2013, at the Hans Arnhold Center, the American Academy announced the establishment of the Inga Maren Otto Berlin Prize in Music Composition during a composer talk and a dinner honoring Inga Maren Otto with friends and trustees. Following the announcement, current fellow in music composition, Gene Coleman, discussed his work with the artistic director of MaerzMusik, Matthias Osterwold.  »

Published in Foreign Policy

Sovereignty and Intervention, 1993-2013

The history, principles, and limits of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine

From Bosnia in 1993 to Syria in 2013, the issue of humanitarian intervention has been at the center of international politics, in particular the right to intervene in sovereign states. As a member of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, foreign policy expert Michael G. »

Published in Arts and Culture

A Conversation with Tony Cragg

From found objects to rational beings

An innovative manipulator of synthetic materials into forms and images, English-born artist Tony Cragg, director of the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, is best known for his sculpture series "Early Forms and Rational Beings" and, prior, for his experimental use of materials, among them found items and raw matter. »

Published in Humanities

Iraq, Violence, Mourning: On the Late Poetry of Sargon Boulus

Overcoming the imaginary homeland in postwar Iraq

The invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 and the political system it institutionalized added new layers to an already complex and crowded history of violence with multiple villains and multitudes of victims. »

Published in Foreign Policy

Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948

Madeleine Albright and Joschka Fischer on recent European history and the morality of international diplomacy

On the evening of April 16, 2013, at the Bertelsmann Repräsentanz in Berlin, the American Academy hosted Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State under the second Clinton Administration, from 1997 to 2001, and the first female Secretary of State in United States history. »