The sermons of religious preachers sold on tapes, as MP3 files or on CDs are ubiquitous in the Cairo of today. In this lecture the anthropologist Charles Hirschkind (Bosch Public Policy Fellow) investigates the acoustic architecture of Muslim life in Cairo. Following the lecture,  Hirschkind discusses the topic with Werner Schiffauer, Professor of Comparative Cultural and Social Anthropology at the European University Viadrina.

Location: Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin
Admission is free

Sovereignty and Intervention, 1993 - 2013

As a member of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, Michael Ignatieff (Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Visitor) helped develop the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, a set of principles positing that sovereignty is not a right, but a responsibility to protect citizens from mass atrocities. Reflecting on the important changes that have occurred in the debate over when to intervene in sovereign states, Ignatieff analyzes what this ongoing and timely dispute reveals about both the international will to intervene and the varied understandings of the idea of sovereignty.

Presenting Constitutional Change and Democracy in Indonesia (Cambridge University Press, 2013), Professor of Law and Political Science, Donald Horowitz (Siemens Fellow), will lay out the books central findings as well as the implications for other democratizing countries. The presentation is followed by a commentary by Dr. Dirk Tomsa (La Trobe University / GIGA). Moderated by Dr. Andreas Mehler (GIGA).

Location: GIGA Office Berlin, Friedrichstr. 206 (Entrance Zimmerstr.), Ist Floor;
Registration: berlin-registration@giga-hamburg.de
Admisson is free

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 music and influence, Martin Brody, who is completing a book on the subject, will suggest relationships between cultural politics, music patronage, formalist theories, and the often challenging aesthetics of modern music during the Cold War—especially as these relationships played out in the New York new music scene and post-war Rome.

European Civilization and Its Andalusian Discontent

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? Anthropologist Charles Hirschkind (Bosch Public Policy Fellow) will explore in his lecture social and political processes that mediate and sustain an active relation to Europe’s Islamic heritage, and the potential impact of these processes on the lives and political status of Muslim minorities in Spain.

For the 5th HEAD TO HEAD lecture, the philosopher Béatrice Longuenese (John P. Birkelund Fellow) will meet with Rolf Peter Horstmann to discuss morality in the works of Kant and Freud. Their aim is to explore the differences and analogies in the works and destill their relevance for our usage of the pronoun "I."

Tickets: 9,– / 7,– / 4,50 €
www.literaturhaus-stuttgart.de / +49 (0)1805 7007 33
Download the program PDF here.
Location: Literaturhaus Stuttgart, Breitscheidstraße 4, 70174 Stuttgart

A series curated in cooperation with the Literaturhaus Stuttgart

Generously supported by the Robert Bosch Stiftung GmbH, Daimler AG, Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck, and the Berthold Leibinger Stiftung GmbH

Kant’s Moral “I Ought To” and Freud’s Superego

There are surprising similarities between Immanuel Kant’s account of the structure of mental life expressed by our use of “I” in the moral imperative “I ought to,” and the structure of mental life Sigmund Freud called “ego” and “superego” (“Ich”, “Überich”). This presentation will explore similarities on three main points: the conflict of motivations internal to the mind; the relation between discursive and pre-discursive representations of moral motivation; and the unconscious character of moral motivation. Philosopher Béatrice Longuenesse (John P. Birkelund Fellow) suggests that attending to the similarities and tensions between Kant’s and Freud’s views might contribute to a better understanding of the relations between first person (“I assign myself this rule,” “I’m going to do this”) and third person (“this is happening to me”) descriptions of our thoughts and actions.

Heritage, Value, and Vulnerability

The debate on heritage has become intimately linked both to cultural practices and objects, which are often valued far beyond their originating culture – such as the bust of Nefertiti in Berlin. Derek Gillman, executive director and president of the world-renowned Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, who will be spending a week at the Academy as Marina Kellen French Distinguished Visitor, will review in this lecture the evolution of the modern concept of cultural heritage, which was stimulated, he argues, by the French Revolution. Gillman will address aspects of the conflict between the particular and the universal, or the national and the cosmopolitan, concluding with thoughts about Samuel Scheffler’s association of value and vulnerability.