Fellow Spotlight: Spyros Papapetros
Spyros Papapetros’ project “World Ornament” examines bodily and architectural adornment in the work of the German architect Gottfried Semper (1803-1879), who understood ornament as a means of attuning humans with the cosmos.
Winter 2016 Berlin Journal on NPR Berlin
Interviews with writer and Holtzbrinck Fellow Mary Cappello, medical historian and Anna-Maria Kellen Fellow Monica Green, historian and Siemens Fellow Robin Einhorn and writer and Mary Ellen von der Heyden Fellow Anthony Marra.
Nature and Culture in the Kamasutra
University of Chicago Divinity School professor Wendy Doniger, one of the world’s foremost authorities on ancient Indian texts, seeks to restore the Kamasutra to its proper place in the Sanskrit canon.
Capitalism, Temporality, and the Crisis of Labor
Philosopher Moishe Postone seeks to fundamentally rethink the core categories of Marx’s critique of political economy in the fall 2015 Ellen Maria Gorrissen lecture.
The Internet of Things – Solutionism at Its Worst, or Humanity’s Last Savior?
Evgeny Morozov articulates a way to put the Internet of Things to more humane and citizen-focused use.
X-Ray Architecture
Architectural historian Beatriz Colomina discusses how modern architecture, launched by an international group of avant-garde architects in the 1920s, has usually been understood in terms of functional efficiency, new technologies of construction, and the machine aesthetic.
Shame and Shamelessness in the Age of New Media
The New York correspondent of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Andrea Köhler, discusses how shamers can wreak havoc on the lives of those who have offended their values.
Shifting Power Dynamics in the New Digital Age
The founder and director of Google Ideas, Jared Cohen, discusses how from the Great Firewall of China to Russia’s troll armies, from the Syrian Electronic Army to ISIS’s propaganda machine, states and non-state actors are presently using technology to repress people and restrict free expression.
The Possibility of Social Progress
In this lecture, philosopher Philip Kitcher explores the concept of social progress by proposing that we should think of progress pragmatically -- a did John Dewey -- in terms of overcoming problems rather than as directed towards some ideal state.
Gay Berlin, Birthplace of a Modern Identity
In this lecture, Robert Beachy presents the broad argument from his book Gay Berlin: Birthplace of a Modern Identity (published in November 2014 and in German translation last June). He argues that German legal reformers and medical doctors invented a new language to describe an “essentialist” sexual identity that helped to shape Berlin’s community of sexual minorities, both before and after the First World War.