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With the "Thyssen Lectures" the Fritz Thyssen Foundation is continuing a tradition that is initiated beginning in Germany in 1979 and followed by venues at a series of universitites in the Czech Republic, Israel, the Russian Republic and, most recently, in Turkey.The series in Greece is being organised for a period of four years under the leadership of Prof. Vassilios Skouris, former President of the European Court of Justice and current Director of the Centre of International and European Economic Law (CIELL), and is dedicated to the framework topic of "the EU as a community of European law and values".THE CRISIS OF THE STATE GOVERNED BY THE RULE OF LAW - WHAT TO DO?In a liberal constitutional state, rule of law and democracy are two sides of the same coin. In a democracy as well, freedom requires state power to be constrained by law and action by the state to be subject to checks and controls by autonomous and impartial courts of law. In some EU Member States, the rule of law is being undermined, with governing elites citing the democratically legitimised rule of the majority as pretext. In the process, state institutions empowered with exercising checks and controls, such as courts of law, law enforcement agencies, police and intelligence services, are forced to tow the line, while key positions are filled with their own cronies. The EU has taken a number of steps to counteract this development. These include, in particular, case law handed down by the ECJ laying down requirements governing the independence of Member State courts. Although these measures are now having an impact, the crisis afflicting rule of law and democracy can ultimately only be resolved politically. Above all, the political will of the remaining Member States and a commitment on the part of their respective civil society are needed to preserve the EU as a community of law and values.

Zweisprachige Ausgabe / Englisch - DeutschThe "Thyssen Lectures" are a continuation of a tradition that the Fritz Thyssen Foundation initiated in 1979, first at various institutions throughout Germany, and then at several universities in Czechia, Israel, the Russian Federation, Turkey, and most recently Greece. The series in the United Kingdom and Ireland will be held ove a period of four years. Spearheaded by Prof. Christina von Hodenberg, director of the German Historical Insitute London, it will be dedicated to the overarching theme of "Science, Knowledge, and the Legacy of Empire".Colonial Times, Global Times: History and Imperial World-MakingColonial hierachies were constituted not by military and economic power alone, but also by imperial worldviews. Chief among their ingredients was a particular temporality. The expansion of the European (and, soon, American and Japanese) empires, and the grafting of imperial structures onto colonized communities, confronted large groups of people with new temporal norms. This "temporal invasion" found expression in the proliferation of clocks as levers of punctuality and temporal discipline; the alignment of calendars and the concomitant synchronization of the globe; and the dissemination of History as the privileged form of linking past, present, and future. Consequently, historians emerged as imperial agents in their own right. They helped introduce "historical time" and a cosmology that redefined narratives about the past, the trajectories into the future, in the colonizing/colonial world. The lecture discusses how historians achieved this revolutionary form of world-making. It argues that this was not only a colonial imposition, but must it be seen as a repsonse to global conjunctures.

Zweisprachige Ausgabe / Englisch - DeutschThe "Thyssen Lectures" are a continuation of a tradition that the Fritz Thyssen Foundation initiated in 1979, first at various institutions throughout Germany, and then at several universities in Czechia, Israel, the Russian Federation, Turkey, and most recently Greece. The series in the United Kingdom and Ireland will be held ove a period of four years. Spearheaded by Prof. Christina von Hodenberg, director of the German Historical Insitute London, it will be dedicated to the overarching theme of "Science, Knowledge, and the Legacy of Empire".Worlding IndiaSumathi Ramaswamy's lecture focuses on a range of modern disciplinary formations known generally as earth sciences - especially geography and cartography - and explores how these sciences "worlded" one specific location on the earth's surface, "India", as a knowable, calculable, intelligible, and masterable place over the course of two centuries of British colonial rule. The lecture goes beyond the processes of imperial world-making: using three examples, Ramaswamy shows how the people of India responded to and engaged with such processes in very different ways, and very often on their own terms. Following Dipesh Chakrabaty, she demonstrates that for worldmaking projects in colonial and postcolonial India, the empire's gift of science is indispensable but inadequate.

With the "Thyssen Lectures" the Fritz Thyssen Foundation is continuing a tradition that is initiated beginning in Germany in 1979 and followed by venues at a series of universitites in the Czech Republic, Israel, the Russian Republic and, most recently, in Turkey.The series in Greece is being organised for a period of four years under the leadership of Prof. Vassilios Skouris, former President of the European Court of Justice and current Director of the Centre of International and European Economic Law (CIELL), and is dedicated to the framework topic of "the EU as a community of European law and values".A NEW MODEL OF DEMOCRACY FOR THE 21ST CENTURY?Although the principle of democracy serves - at least de iure - as the foundation for the exercise of state power throughout the world, the threats being posed to democratic governance are apparent. This is not only the case with regard to the growing concentration of power in systems that are already chracterised as "authorian" like Russia, China and Turkey. But even consolidated democracies see themselves confronted with major challenges, however.The internationalisation of decision-making, for example, while originally perceived as progress, is running up against mounting criticism as "undemocratic", while reservations exist when it comes to basing decision-making purely on expert knowledge, nor is it easy to counter populist tendencies. All this raises the question as to what extent new principles need to be elaborated for democratic governance in the 21st century.

TransLit ist eine spezifisch konturierte Poetikdozentur, die ab dem Wintersemester 2015/16 einmal jährlich an der Universität zu Köln durchgeführt wird. Anders als die landesweit üblichen Poetikdozenturen, die Gegenwartsautor_innen, ihr aktuelles Werk sowie ihre poetologischen Überlegungen in Vorlesungsreihen präsentieren, widmet sich das Kölner Projekt einem Spezifikum literarischen Lebens. Unter dem Stichwort ,Literatur im medialen Wandel' verfolgt TransLit im Rahmen unterschiedlicher Veranstaltungstypen das Ziel, jene Autor_innen, deren literarische Texte Eingang in andere mediale Formen gefunden haben, für die Dozentur zu gewinnen und sie ins Gespräch zu bringen mit eingeladenen Theater- und Opernregisseur_innen, Filmschaffenden, Museumskurator_innen u.a.m., deren Arbeit verschiedenen Adaptationsformen von vormoderner und moderner Literatur in Text und Bild, auf der Bühne, in digitalen Medien oder im Film gilt.Die Dozentur soll den Studierenden der Philosophischen Fakultät die Gelegenheit geben, im direkten, persönlichen Austausch mit den Eingeladenen die vielfältigen Prinzipien medialer Adaptation von Literatur kennenzulernen und selbst literarische Texte zu produzieren.Durch die konsequente Auswahl von Autoren_innen und Expert_innen aus unterschiedlichen Medienbereichen, deren Werk und Arbeit für Formen einer (inter)medialen Transformation von Literatur steht, erhält die Dozentur ein im bundesweiten Vergleich einmaliges Profil.2021 war die in Berlin lebende Autorin Iris Hanika an der Universität zu Köln zu Gast.

"Sprache, Sprechen sind unentbehrliche Instrumente menschlichen Zusammenlebens. [...] Nur in einem sollten wir uns nicht täuschen: Auch wer als halbwegs Erwachsener seine Heimat und das 'Haus des Seins', seine Muttersprache, verlassen musste, wird die Sehnsucht nach dieser sprachlichen Geborgenheit wohl lebenslang behalten. Ja, Sprache ist Heimat. Heimat, die einem keiner streitig machen kann. Nicht einmal eine Diktatur." Ulla Hahn

Durch Krieg und Wiederaufbau, durch den Muff der Universitätsjahre bis zum Rausschmiss, durch aufregende Theaterzeiten mit faszinierenden Begegnungen. Als Rudolf Rach als Leiter des Theaterverlags bei Suhrkamp anfing, hatte sein Vorgänger gerade den Verlag der Autoren gegründet. Ein kollektives Modell, das den von den Eigentümern geführten Suhrkamp Verlag herausfordern sollte. In einer Zeit, in der der westdeutsche Kapitalismus sich gegen den ostdeutschen Sozialismus wehrte, in der die Terroristen der RAF den westdeutschen Staat attackierten. Hier erzählt jemand eine deutsche Geschichte, eine Abenteuer- und Liebesgeschichte. Eine halbe Lebensreise, nachgezeichnet in Begegnungen mit Autoren wie Max Frisch oder Thomas Bernhard, Rainer Werner Fassbinder oder Pina Bausch, deren Choreographien den Tanz im letzten Viertel des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts revolutioniert haben. Zeitgeschichte aus ästhetischem Blickwinkel wird in diesem ersten Band erzählt. Und Rudolf Rach zieht es weiter. 1986 bricht er nach Paris auf - in eine ganz andere Kultur - und kauft in Saint-Germain-des-Prés den Verlag L'Arche. Er verlegt Autoren wie Bertolt Brecht, Jon Fosse oder Sarah Kane und ein neues, spannendes Kapitel beginnt.