America at 250: A Festival with The Atlantic in Germany

November 3-6, 2025 | Berlin and Munich

At a time when the liberal democratic order is under mounting pressure, The Atlantic and the American Academy in Berlin are hosting a weeklong series of public conversations, private roundtables, and high-level dialogues across Berlin and Munich. Bringing together leading journalists, thinkers, and policymakers from both sides of the Atlantic, this festival will explore urgent issues – from the future of democracy and the rise of autocracy to climate, technology, culture, and the shifting global economy. Set in two of Germany’s most influential cities and timed to the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the event offers a vital transatlantic forum for reflection, debate, and fresh thinking at a moment of global transformation.

Joining the festival will be Atlantic writers:

Jeffrey Goldberg is the editor in chief of The Atlantic and the moderator of Washington Week with The Atlantic on PBS. He joined The Atlantic in 2007 as a national correspondent and in 2016 was named the magazine’s the fifteenth editor in chief. Before joining The Atlantic, Goldberg served as the Middle East correspondent and then the Washington correspondent for the New Yorker. Earlier in his career, he was a writer for the New York Times Magazine and New York magazine. He began his career as a police reporter for the Washington Post. Goldberg is the author of Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror. A former fellow of the American Academy in Berlin, he also served as a public-policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and as the Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Helen Lewis is a staff writer at The Atlantic. She is the author of Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights and the host of the BBC’s long-form interview series, The Spark. Her next book, The Genius Myth, is scheduled for publication in 2025. At The Atlantic, she writes about the intersection of politics, society, and digital culture.

George Packer is a staff writer at The Atlantic. From 2003 to 2018, he was a staff writer at the New Yorker. He is the author of Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal, Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century—winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Hitchens Prize—and The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America. A recipient of the 2013 National Book Award for Nonfiction and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, Packer is also the author of four previous works of nonfiction and, most recently, The Emergency, a work of fiction to be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in early November.

Ashley Parker is a staff writer at The Atlantic. Previously, Parker—a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner—spent eight years at the Washington Post, where she covered all four years of Donald Trump’s first presidency, was White House bureau chief during President Joe Biden’s first two years, and covered the 2024 presidential campaign as the senior national political correspondent. Before that, she spent more than a decade at the New York Times, where she covered the 2012 and 2016 presidential campaigns and Congress. She is also a political analyst for NBC and MSNBC.

Thomas Chatterton Williams is a staff writer at The Atlantic. He is also a visiting professor of humanities at Bard College, a 2022 Guggenheim fellow, and a nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of Self-Portrait in Black and White. Williams’s work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Harper’s, New Yorker, London Review of Books, Le Monde, and many other places, and has been collected in The Best American Essays and The Best American Travel Writing. His most recent book, Summer of Our Discontent: The Age of Certainty and the Demise of Discourse, was published by Knopf in August 2025.

SCHEDULE

Monday, November 3, 2025

America at 250 (Munich)

Time: 7:30 p.m.
Location: Residenztheater (Max-Joseph-Platz 1, 80539 München)

In 2026, the United States will mark its 250th birthday—a milestone that invites both celebration and reflection. What has the American experiment achieved, and what has it squandered? At a time of intense polarization at home and shifting power abroad, Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic’s editor in chief, and George Packer, an Atlantic staff writer, join Daniel Benjamin, president of the American Academy in Berlin, to discuss this current moment in American history and what might be next. The conversation, joined by Süddeutsche Zeitung editor in chief Wolfgang Krach and editor at large Andrian Kreye, is presented in partnership by the American Academy in Berlin, The Atlantic, and SZ.

REGISTER VIA SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG

Speakers: Jeffrey Goldberg | George Packer | Daniel Benjamin | Wolfgang Krach | Andrian Kreye

Tuesday, November 4, 2025

America at 250: A Private Reception with The Atlantic

Invitation only

Friends and supporters of the American Academy in Berlin join us for an evening of discussion with writers and editors from The Atlantic.

Wednesday, November 5, 2025

Breakfast Roundtable: The State of the Media

Invitation only

Roundtable discussion with staff writers from The Atlantic and German journalists on the evolving landscape of press freedom and responsibility in the current political environment.

Speakers: Jeffrey Goldberg | Helen Lewis | George Packer | Ashley Parker | Thomas Chatterton Williams

Wednesday, November 5, 2025

Book Talk: The Emergency with George Packer

Invitation only

With The Emergency, Academy alumnus and Atlantic staff writer George Packer returns to fiction to deliver a visionary novel that examines what it means to live in a time of fracture and upheaval.

Moderated by Georg Diez, Journalist and Author

Wednesday, November 5, 2025

America at 250 (Berlin)

Time: 6:30 p.m.
Location: Babylon (Rosa-Luxemburg-Str. 30, 10178 Berlin)

In 2026, the United States will mark its 250th birthday—a milestone that invites both celebration and reflection. What has the American experiment achieved, and what has it squandered? At a time of intense polarization at home and shifting power abroad, Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic’s editor in chief, and Atlantic staff writers Helen Lewis, George Packer, and Ashley Parker join Daniel Benjamin, president of the American Academy in Berlin, to discuss this current moment in American history and what might be next.

REGISTER VIA THE AMERICAN ACADEMY IN BERLIN

Speakers: Helen Lewis | George Packer | Ashley Parker | Moderated by Jeffrey Goldberg | Introduced by Daniel Benjamin

In cooperation with

Thursday, November 6, 2025

Book Talk: The Genius Myth with Helen Lewis

Invitation only

Atlantic staff writer and host of the BBC podcast “The New Gurus” Helen Lewis discusses her timely, provocative interrogation of the myth of genius, exploring the surprising inventions, inspirations, and distortions by which some lives are elevated to “greatness,” while others are left out in the cold.

Thursday, November 6, 2025

Book Talk: Summer of our Discontent with Thomas Chatterton Williams

Invitation only

Academy trustee and Atlantic staff writer Thomas Chatterton Williams discusses his latest book, Summer of Our Discontent, a thoughtful and controversial analysis of the evolving mores, manners, and taboos of social justice orthodoxy.

Moderated by Elisabeth Zerofsky, a contributing writer at New York Times Magazine. Zerofsky has reported extensively across Europe and the US for the magazine and is currently at work on a book about the rise of far-right politics and a new era of illiberal democracy.

Thursday, November 6, 2025

Cancel Culture vs. Consequence Culture?

Time: 6:30 p.m.
Location: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin / Otto-Braun-Saal (Potsdamer Str. 37, 10785 Berlin)

Join us for a thought-provoking public discussion on Cancel Culture vs. Consequence Culture, exploring how accountability, forgiveness, and social justice intersect in today’s public sphere, both online and in public forums, from both the left and the right. Writers from the Atlantic address the ways democratic polities are attempting to balance freedom of expression with the need for responsible action and empathy.