Exhibition
Created by the
Thomas Mann House, the travelling pop-up exhibition 'Thomas Mann: Democracy Will Win!' commemorates the series of lecture tours that the Nobel Laureate conducted throughout the Unites States from the late 1930s to the mid-1940s. The first of these tours began at Northwestern University, where more than 4000 people came to hear him speak about the fundamental reasons for liberal democracy. “It is a terrible spectacle when the irrational becomes popular,” Mann said in a speech at the Library of Congress in 1943, and he drew on his considerable powers of thought and expression to counter the sources of this spectacle through his confident motto: “Democracy will win.”
The like-named exhibit, located on the ground floor of the University Library, is divided into two parts: the first charts the changes in Mann’s political views, while the second connects Mann’s lectures tours to current political situations in both Europe and the United States.
The library and the exhibit is open to the public Monday – Saturday, 8am – 6pm with photo ID.
Photo: ETH Zurich/Thomas Mann Archive
A symposium on Thomas Mann’s advocacy of democracy during the Nazi period will be held in Northwestern University's Deering Library, room 208, on Friday, February 3rd.
For more information about the symposium, please click here.
This exhibition is organized by Northwestern University's German Department, in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut Chicago and the Thomas Mann House.
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