27 May – 2 June: Cultural Events Online
From book club interviews with authors to live music

It’s debatable! Deliberation, debate and discussion are writ large in this week’s lineup of events. In-between several serious discussions of racism, climate justice and gender issues, however, there will be time for interludes of dancing, stargazing and bibliophilic exchange.

Wednesday 27 May, 7 pm
DEBATE | YOUR HOMELAND IS OUR NIGHTMARE

MAKE YOURSELVES AT HOME – OR NOT! Heimat is a historically loaded German word meaning “native country”, “homeland”. Is Heimat at base an ethno-nationalistic concept? Yes, according to the 14 authors of Eure Heimat ist unser Albtraum (Your Homeland Is Our Nightmare). In this anthology, the contributors speak out against the normalization of the concept of Heimat and the discrimination and racism they’re subjected to in their everyday lives. At this particular event, held by the Goethe-Institut Belgium and the Literaturhaus Berlin, three of them, Mithu Sanyal, Fatma Ayedmir and Max Czollek, will be talking about their experiences and their critiques of German mainstream society.
>>> Eure Heimat ist unser Albtraum (Your Homeland Is Our Nightmare) 
 
 
Thursday 28 May, 6 pm
LECTURE | HAMBURG PLANETARIUM – SOLAR EXPLORATION

NEWS FROM THE COSMOS, or at least from the sun, will be writ large at the Hamburg Planetarium on Thursday. In its Neues aus der Unendlichkeit (News from Infinity) lecture series, the planetarium will be presenting some of the latest findings in space research. This time, the telescope will be zeroing in on the sun for a closeup examination of our number-one celestial body. So it’s an ideal opportunity for anyone who wants to get away from it all for a while …
>>> Planetarium Hamburg
 
 
Thursday 28 May, 8 pm
DEBATE | MAXIM GORKI THEATRE: THE MANY FACES OF A CRISIS

THERE’S NO GOING BACK. Art historian Bénédicte Savoy and theatre director Milo Rau discuss the social, political and cultural consequences of the corona pandemic. The crisis has been fraught with ongoing insecurity and uncertainty, and it’s bound to leave its mark in the long run. In a word, the world will never be the same. The debate will be livecast in German with simultaneous English translation.
>>> Maxim Gorki Theater
 

Friday 29 May, 6 pm
DEBATE | KAMPNAGEL: TRANSGENERATORS – WHO HAS POWER OVER THE FUTURE?

GENERATION CONFLICT OR A MOMENT OF SOLIDARITY? The corona crisis is hitting the elderly hardest, whereas the climate crisis has it in for the next generation. What’s the connection between the two crises? 13-year-old Jim Ismael Anton has invited Luisa Neubauer from Fridays for Future and Greenpeace lawyer Roda Verheen to find the connections and ask the do-or-die question: Can we join forces to do the right thing for the climate?
>>> Transgenerators
 

Saturday 30 May, 6 pm
MUSIC | BALCONY SESSIONS

KEEP DANCING. The Balcony Sessions will be beaming electronic music from Berlin straight into your living room this weekend “to make music and emotions safe for us all”, as the organizers put it. On Saturday they’ll be livestreaming for an hour on Twitch from the Panoramabar at the Kino International in Berlin-Mitte. This round of raves features the DJs A.D.H.S., Jose Bonetto and Mehr is Mehr.
>>> Balcony Sessions

 
Monday 1 June, 8 pm
TALK | GÖTTINGEN LITERARY CENTRE: ARE CRISES GENDERED?

MEN, WOMEN & THE CRISIS. Next up in the Göttingen Crisis Talks, author Klaus Theweleit talks to journalist Katrin Gottschalt about domestic violence, war rhetoric and gender roles in the corona crisis. Theweleit’s book Männerphantasien was published in 1977 (English translation: Male Fantasies, 1987) and is regarded as the founding text of “men's studies” and a milestone in the study of violence. Over forty years later, the book is now being reprinted.
>>> Are crises gendered? 
 
 
Tuesday 2 June, 7 pm
BOOK CLUB | MEET THE AUTHOR: YOKO TAWADA – “ETÜDEN IM SCHNEE” (ETUDES IN THE SNOW)

ASK THE AUTHOR. If you’ve ever wondered what the author was thinking at any given point in a book, you can slake your curiosity at the International Online Book Club of the Goethe-Instituts in northwestern Europe. For the first edition of this joint book club, German-Japanese writer Yoko Tawada will be fielding questions about her novel Etüden im Schnee (Etudes in the Snow). Written from the perspective of a family of polar bears, the novel tells a story of migrations spanning three generations and a lot of latitudes, from the North Pole via Moscow to Berlin – and makes for amusing reading.
>>> Meet the Author
 

ART | A MUSEUM OF THE MIND

YOUR INNER MUSEUM. German public broadcaster Südwestrundfunk (SWR) has come up with a “museum of the mind”, a series of short videos in which prominent figures in culture and the arts – starting with author Matthias Politycki and actor Itay Tiran – each talk about a work of art that means a lot to them. Little by little, they will be creating a museum for all of us to share in the mind’s eye.
>>> Museum of the mind