May 15
500 Jahre Bauernkrieg. Literarische und politische Fluchtlinien
With Mareike Schildmann, Dietmar Dath and Enis Maci, moderated by Patrick Eiden-Offe.
The Peasants' War has always been a point of reference in literature, prominent for example in Goethe, Gerhart Hauptmann, Berta Lask, Friedrich Wolf - and most recently in Éric Vuillard's literary-historical essay “The War of the Poor”.
To mark the 500th anniversary, literary scholar Mareike Schildmann will outline the ways in which the Peasants' War was received in literature and highlight selected texts. Afterwards, author Dietmar Dath, will question the continued impact of political tensions such as the Müntzer/Luther opposition. Enis Maci discusses the extent to which the peasant wars of the present are being fought less on fields and hills and more digitally on the internet.
(DE)
6 pm | Literaturforum im Brecht-Haus, Chausseestraße 125
May 15
Sophia Hembeck: "Things I have changed"
Book launch moderated by Josephine Apraku
Sophia Hembeck began writing the successful Things trilog about her own life four years ag – in search of herself (Things I Have Noticed, 2020) and her self-worth (Things I Have Loved, 2023). This part dedicated to self-narration (Things I Have Changed, 2025) actually began well before that. It is a collage of all the blind spots and omissions, the things she has been unable or unwilling to see over the years. About what she doesn't want to write about but must.
“I don't want to write about my mother,” she says again and again, but what she really means is that she doesn't want to write about herself, doesn't want to write where it gets dark, where it hurts, where the blurriness begins. And yet this book is an attempt to stay in it as long as possible. Like waking up at night and waiting until your eyes get used to the darkness and outlines slowly become clear.
Sophia Hembeck is a bilingual author and interdisciplinary artist. She studied Scenic Writing at the Berlin University of the Arts and now lives in Edinburgh. Her work combines poetry, essay writing and visual art, often revolving around the intricacies of self-perception and memory. She has published three collections of essays to date and writes in her weekly Substack newsletter The Muse.
(DE/EN)
7:30 pm | ocelot, Brunnenstraße 181
May 15
Thomas Moynihan: Bildungsroman for the Baby Noosphere
Lecture as part of the Event Scales of Life.
For centuries, people — both misanthropes and humanists alike — have compared Earth’s life to a ‘sludge’ clinging to our planet’s crust. Stephen Hawking memorably called the human race ‘chemical scum’ clinging cravenly to a spinning rock. Is biology merely a mold or planetary fungal infection? Answering this question depends on the evaluation of the stature of sludge. After all, some slime has potentials. The Earth’s organic coating, after all, has — for aeons now — drastically transformed its planetary environment, bringing forth the unprecedented from the precedented. So far, however, this process would be best called planetary stupidity, rather than planetary sapience. However, how could it have been otherwise?
Thomas Moynihan is a UK-based author. Holding a PhD from Oriel College, Oxford University, he is currently a Research Affiliate at Cambridge University’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk as well as a Affiliate Researcher for the Berggruen Institute’s Antikythera thinktank. Moynihan is the author of X-Risk: How Humanity Discovered Its Own Extinction, published with MIT Press and Urbanomic in 2020, as well as Spinal Catastrophism, published also with MIT Press and Urbanomic, in 2019.
(EN)
7:30 pm | ICI Berlin, Christinenstr. 18-19
May 17
Lange Buchnacht Oranienstraße mit Paulina Czienskowski und Mercedes Lauenstein
Aufbau Verlage and Buchhandlung am Moritzplatz invite you to a spring party on the roof terrace of Aufbau Haus!
Paulina Czienskowski and Mercedes Lauenstein are two of the most exciting voices in German-language literature today. This spring, they both published new novels : “Dem Mond geht es gut” (Czienskowski) and “Zuschauen und Winken” (Lauenstein).
As part of the Lange Buchnacht Oranienstraße, Paulina Czienskowski and Mercedes Lauenstein will be presenting their new works in conversation with Lara Sielmann.
There will also be snacks and drinks for a donation, which will be passed on to Omas gegen Rechts.
(DE)
7 pm | Dachterrasse im Aufbau Haus Prinzenstraße 85 (Aufgang D)