Special: Patty Jenkins on the Power of Storytelling

"It is so important that people make big movies that reach that next generation. It’s the power of story (…) and when I line up with a storyline that I can say something with, it is a profound place to be in." For this special episode, Aida Baghernejad and Tom Zoellner talk to award-winning director, screenwriter and producer Patty Jenkins about the universal power of storytelling, superheroes, and the future of film in a changing media environment. Jenkins is best known for the films Wonder Woman (2017), Wonder Woman 1984 (2020), and her debut Oscar-winning feature Monster (2003). She also helmed the pilot and finale of AMC’s hit show The Killing, garnering her multiple awards.

55. Clint Smith on Cultures of Remembrance in the U.S. & Germany

“Physically putting your body in a place where history happened gives you a different sense of intimacy, a different sense of proximity to that history.” In the final episode of our podcast, author, poet, and scholar Clint Smith speaks about the importance of collectively reckoning with history and cultures of remembrance in the U.S. and Germany ,amongst other issues. He is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America, the best-selling poetry collection Above Ground and the award-winning poetry collection Counting Descent. He is a staff writer at The Atlantic.

Special: Marina Weisband on What Gets us Through the Crisis.

“Going through a crisis and having a positive vision of the future are not the same thing. You need to have a positive vision of the future to get through the crisis.” Our hosts, Aida Baghernejad and Tom Zoellner, interviewed politician Marina Weisband for this special episode, recorded live at the international literaturfestival berlin. After an introduction by political scientist and Thomas Mann Fellow Christine Landfried, they discussed the digital revolution, among other things. Marina Weisband is a politician, psychologist, and participation educator. Together with Frido Mann, she is the co-author of the book Was uns durch die Krise trägt. Ein Generationengespräch (2023).

54 Lynne Thompson on the Role of Poetry in Democracies

“There is an understanding that between humans we have this one thing called language and it brings us - or can bring us - together.” Writer and poet Lynne Thompson talks with hosts Aida Baghernejad and Tom Zoellner about her journey to becoming a poet, the role of “truth “in poetry and its meaning for democracy. Lynne Thompson is the 2021-2022 Poet Laureate for the City of Los Angeles, and her poetry collections include Beg No Pardon (2007), Start With A Small Guitar (2013), and Fretwork (2019). Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, Poetry, Poem-A-Day (Academy of American Poets), New England Review, Colorado Review, Best American Poetry, to name a few.

53 William Wiggins on African American History and Historically Black Colleges & Universities

Host Tom Zoellner sat down with William Wiggins, Historian and Professor, to discuss the complexities of African American history, the relationship between Historically Black Colleges & Universities and Predominantly White Institutions in the United States and how to overcome societal differences. Professor Wiggins is a Kent State and Princeton University graduate and has taught at various institutions, such as the University of Connecticut, Columbia University and most recently, Hampton University. He has written on numerous subjects, dealing with revolutionary figures and movements in U.S. history.

52 Teresa Bücker on time as a political resource

“Time is a political resource. How much time we have in a day […], how time is distributed is a question of structures we find within a society. It’s structured by the economic system we have; it’s structured by gender, by race.” Listen to our new podcast with journalist and author Teresa Bücker on a feminist and just approach to time as a resource in modern society. Teresa Bücker has been reporting on socio-political questions of the past and present for over 15 years. She writes a column titled “Freie Radikale – die Ideenkolumne” (Free radicals – the column for ideas) for the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and is part of the monthly online roundtable “Die feministische Presserunde” (the feminist press round), a virtual gathering to discuss current political topics.

51 Roberto Lovato on the “Tenderness that Survives the Terror”

“I’ve been through war; I’ve witnessed the workings of genocide; I have gone to mass graves across the entire continent (…) We have to un-forget to get past the present fear.” The writer and journalist Roberto Lovato speaks about overcoming personal and collective trauma. Lovato regularly appears on news shows such as MSNBC, BBC, CNN and DemocracyNow! and his work has been published in publications such as The New York Times, The Guardian, Foreign Policy, Der Spiegel and more. In 2020, he published his first book titled Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs and Revolutions in the Americas, a “groundbreaking” memoir The New York Times picked as an “Editor’s Choice.”

50 Antonia Juhasz on the Impact of Fossil Fuels on Democracy 

“Part of what has led the movement against fossil fuels is the increased number of people being confronted with the effects of oil drilling and fracking,” argues energy analyst and investigative journalist Antonia Juhasz. The Senior Researcher in the Environment and Human Rights Division at Human Rights Watch talks about how our dependency on fossil fuels heavily impacts the environment, politics, social justice and human rights worldwide. Juhasz regularly writes for outlets such as The New York Times and The Guardian and is the author of Black Tide: the Devastating Impact of the Gulf Oil Spill (2011), among others. 

49 Raul Krauthausen on Inclusion and Accessibility

“I realized that everything I learned in terms of communication, creativity, strategy and planning at university can also be used for good...for the rights of people with disabilities,” states Raul Krauthausen. The inclusion activist and podcaster compares inclusion and accessibility laws in the US and Germany, and explains how Germany's reckoning with its fascist past still affects institutional structures today. Raul Krauthausen is the founder of a series of initiatives focusing on diversity and inclusion, among them SOZIALHELD*INNEN (Social heroes), which advises individuals and businesses on considering people with disabilities as a target group for their products and services. He is also the host of several podcasts.

48 Sarah Jaffe on Working Conditions & Labor Movements

“Until we start thinking about what people’s lives are really like and not just shame them for how they vote, we’re not going to have a healthy democracy,” argues Sarah Jaffe. The labor journalist talks about the disillusion of workers with politics and why seemingly incoherent protest movements should never be disregarded. Does today’s labor shortage give workers bargaining power? Sarah Jaffe published her book Work Won't Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted and Alone to wide acclaim in 2020.

47 Geraldo Cadava on the 2022 Midterm Elections & 'the Latino Vote'

"One of the things that is so fascinating about last night‘s midterm Elections is how young people really showed up,” states Geraldo Cadava, professor of history and Latina and Latino studies. In this episode, he gives his fresh take on the 2022 Midterm Elections and discusses the diversity of the Latino community in the U.S. along with the influence religion, race, and identity have on Latino voters. Geraldo Cadava is the author of The Hispanic Republican: The Shaping of an American Political Identity, from Nixon to Trump (2020) and Standing on Common Ground (2013) and professor at Northwestern University.

46 Boris Dralyuk on Poetry, Translation and Émigrés

While politics can involve seemingly abstract decisions, “literature can remind us of the stakes at human level,” argues Boris Dralyuk. The translator, author and editor-in-chief of Los Angeles Review of Books talks about how translators help give the voiceless a voice, and shares what he believes to be the raison d’etre of literary criticism in an increasingly fragmented cultural landscape. Boris Dralyuk’s collection My Hollywood and Other Poems appeared in April 2022. In 2020 he received the inaugural Kukula Award for Excellence in Nonfiction Book Reviewing from the Washington Monthly.

45 LaTosha Brown on Fighting Voter Suppression

“Some of the tension and voter suppression we are experiencing right now is not a result of us losing, it is a result of us winning,” states LaTosha Brown, community organizer and co-founder of Black Voters Matter. In this episode, she talks about the specific mechanics that suppress Black votes, the importance of activating Black voters, particularly in rural areas, and the power marginalized groups and young voters hold to change democracies. LaTosha Brown and Black Voters Matter have been credited for significant voter registration efforts in several elections, among them the 2020-21 U.S. Senate election in Georgia.

44 Doris Kleilein on Changing Definitions of Urban Architecture

What makes a city a home for people with different backgrounds? How has the pandemic impacted city planning and urban architecture? In this episode, the 2022 Thomas Mann Fellow, architect and author Doris Kleilein looks at the benefits of L.A.’s ‘laissez-faire urbanism’ compared to more regulated approaches in Europe. She argues that “the built visibility of a culture or minority is key to becoming part of society.” Kleilein’s research focuses on how city planning can propose new forms of living together for a changing heterogenous societies. Kleilein heads the architectural book publishing house JOVIS in Berlin, and in 2021 co-edited “Post-Pandemic Urbanism.”

43 Christoph Bieber on Challenges of the Internet

What can be done against online hate speech and deep fakes? Host Tom Zoellner talks to the political scientist & 2022 Thomas Mann Fellow Christoph Bieber about regulation of the internet in Europe and the U.S.: Is there reason to be optimistic when it comes to our digital present and future? In his research, the professor at the Center for Advanced Internet Studies in Bochum, Germany, looks at the impact and effect of online communication on political actors and moral issues related to the digitalization of urban spaces. 

42 Veronika Fuechtner on Thomas Mann's construction of "Germanness" and Race

The Brazilian origins of his mother Júlia were initially a source of shame for Thomas Mann, but that changed in the 1920s “as his understanding of his role in society and democracy changed,” claims Dr. Veronika Fuechtner. The Professor of German Studies at Dartmouth talks about the role of racial and sexual ambiguity in Mann’s writing and why he emigrated to the U.S. rather than to Brazil. Fuechtner has co-authored A Global History of Sexual Science 1880-1960 (2017) and is currently completing a monograph on Júlia Mann and Thomas Mann's construction of race and “Germanness.”

41 Ulrich J. Schneider on Libraries as Democratic Spaces

“Today, when politicians think you can close down libraries because everything is available online, you have to remind them that libraries are not only for books; they are for people,” says Thomas Mann Fellow and former director of the Leipzig University Library, Ulrich J. Schneider. In his research, he examines the importance of public libraries in different social contexts. In this episode, he explains how public libraries came to be places of interaction and “movement of the mind” where people, regardless of their social status, can access knowledge and leave as changed persons. He argues that libraries need to be forums of discussion and explains what roles academic libraries should play to help strengthen the democratic project.

40 Rosecrans Baldwin on Los Angeles as a City-State

This episode focuses on what novelist and writer Rosecrans Baldwin calls "the city state Los Angeles.” In his recent best-selling book Everything Now: Lessons From the City-State of Los Angeles, the award-winning author shares his thoughts on one of the United States’ most confounding metropolises – "not just a great city, but a full-blown modern city-state.” Together with our hosts, Baldwin addresses issues such as the housing crisis, city planning and what can be learned from comparing L.A.’s infrastructure to another highly fascinating metropolis: Berlin. Baldwin is the winner of the 2022 California Book Award. 

39 Christine Landfried on the Democratic Potential of Citizens' Assemblies 

When it comes to politics, “distrust is a very healthy thing” says 2022 Thomas Mann Fellow Christine Landfried. She warns though that it should not be confused with loss of trust as the latter means people will disconnect from political discussions entirely. In this episode, the professor of political science talks about how citizens’ assemblies, a new form of participation, are a way to strengthen democracy by not only giving people a direct say in matters but also by connecting people from diverse cultural backgrounds and social strata. Landfried has observed citizens’ assemblies and prominently reported about them in a variety of German-speaking media outlets.

38 Matthew Continetti on Populism and Conservatism in "The American Right"

“The right is becoming less interested in defending a particular idea of limited government, and more interested in waging cultural battles against the left,” argues Matthew Continetti, author and historian with a focus on the Republican Party and the American conservative movement in the 20th century. In this episode, he explains how the rights’ greatest successes have not come as a result of its own agenda but of liberal overreach and how the territory on which politics is conducted has moved over from the size and scope of the State to arguments over the nature of America. His most recent book The Right: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism was published in 2022.

37 Diana Garvin on the Political Implications of Food

The fascist regime in Italy attempted early on to create a culinary nationalism by “re-writing ‘la cucina povera’ (the cooking of the poor) as national greatness” and to evoke a sense of pride in local produce that would ultimately support the fascist economy, argues historian Diana Garvin. Garvin is an Assistant Professor of Italian at the University of Oregon, and has done extensive research on the role of food and coffee in fascism. In this episode, she talks about how food remains central to nation building to this day, and what makes a meal fascist or anti-fascist. Garvin is the author of the 2022 book Feeding Fascism: The Politics of Women’s Food Work.

 

What can Germany learn from California in terms of Equal Pay? Birte Meier explored this question during her Fellowship at the Thomas Mann House in Los Angeles. In this episode of 55 Voices for Demcoracy, she talks about how California's Equal Pay Act effectively protects against discrimination - for example, by allowing workers to speak openly about their salaries. Award-winning journalist Birte Meier studied North American Studies, Modern History and Journalism. Since 2007, she has worked as a ZDF editor for investigative reports on politics and business. Since 2007, she has worked as a ZDF editor, doing investigative business stories and in-depth political reports.

 

The podcast celebrates it's first birthday this month! Time to look back on the first 25 episodes and reflect on what happened so far: Hosts Tom Zoellner and Aida Baghernejad discuss the highlights and their favorite moments of the podcast against the backdrop of their own biographies. How do their individual political and professional backgrounds shape the way they approach the podcast and interview the guests? What can we learn from having a German and a U.S. standpoint on the podcast, and how can these different political systems be helpful to get a deeper understanding of democracy? In this episode, we learn more about the hosts of 55 Voices.

 

"We have to think of the entire fabric of our society and we have to be courageous!“ French political scientist Emilia Roig talks about the intersection and simultaneity of different categories of discrimination against certain minorities. Underlying societal hierarchies play an important role in maintaining these injustices. How can institutions like universities or even marriage become complicit in perpetuating them? Roig is a political scientist and founder of the Center for Intersectional Justice, a Berlin-based organization combatting intersecting forms of inequality in Europe. In 2021, she published the best selling book Why We Matter - The End of Oppression (Aufbau Verlag).

 

"The problem is ourselves." Timothy Snyder describes why the challenges of our democracies are not so much political figures like Trump, but ourselves as citizens. Snyder says it's about breaking down social barriers while addressing structural political problems like voter suppression and the manipulation of the electoral college. "A failed coup attempt is a rehearsal for a later coup." Timothy Snyder teaches history at Yale University. His book, On Tyranny, has been translated into more than 40 languages and sold nearly half a million copies in the U.S. alone. It was published in 2021 by Ten Speed Press in an edition illustrated by Nora Krug.

Weeks after Western forces withdrew from Afghanistan, legal historian Samuel Moyn critically reflects on the pursuit of 'humane wars.' "We fight war crimes, but we have forgotten the crime of war," Moyn says. Thus, he says, the wars of recent decades have led to a fixation on the means of war, rather than a discussion of how to end them sustainably. Samuel Moyn is professor of law at Yale Law School and professor of history at Yale University. He is the author of books such as Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World and Humane. How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War.

 

Stephanie Kelton explains how deficits can strengthen economies and be healthy for democracies. She argues that there are no budgetary constraints on government spending and makes the case for challenging our view of public debt. Stephanie Kelton is a professor of economics and public policy at Stony Brook University and a former Chief Economist on the U.S. Senate Budget Committee. She was named by POLITICO as one of the 50 people most influencing the policy debate in America. Stephanie Kelton advises policymakers and consults with investment banks, and portfolio managers across the globe. She is a regular commentator on national radio and broadcast television. Her highly-anticipated book, The Deficit Myth, became an instant New York Times bestseller.

 

Susan Bernofsky's new translation of Thomas Mann's novel "The Magic Mountain" is eagerly awaited. Bernofsky talks about Thomas Mann's multiculturalism and the challenges of translating between languages and cultures. In this episode, the renowned translator also shares her experiences as a Jewish American in Europe and talks about the rise of the global, plural English language. Susan Bernofsky is the prizewinning translator of seven works of fiction by the great Swiss-German modernist author Robert Walser, as well as novels and poetry by Yoko Tawada, Jenny Erpenbeck, Uljana Wolf, Franz Kafka, Hermann Hesse, and others. Her biography of Walser, "Clairvoyant of the Small", appeared in 2021. A Guggenheim, Cullman, and Berlin Prize fellow, she teaches literary translation at Columbia University.

 

While gender fluidity has become more normalized and accepted in the U.S. and Germany in recent years, questions of transgressing categories of race are still raising many questions in contemporary discourses on identity. Most prominently in the case of Rachel Dolezal, a former college professor and activist who ‘identified’ as black despite being born to two white parents. Inspired by Dolezal’s story, Mithu Sanyal’s most recent book Identitti (Hanser Verlag, 2021) showcases the powerful role of internet culture in discourses on sexuality and queerness in a multicultural context. In today’s episode, the German cultural studies scholar, journalist and author discusses current political debates about race and identity. Sanyal is one of the most prolific voices on feminism and postcolonial theory in Germany today.

 

What is a post-Merkel Germany going to look like? How did Germany change in the 16 years of Merkel’s administration and should Germans be afraid of a political backlash after more progressive developments in recent years? Political scientist Joyce Marie Mushaben discusses ongoing disparities between former East and West Germany, issues of gender equality and the rise of a new right in Germany. Mushaben is an Affiliated Faculty member in the BMW Center for German & European Studies at Georgetown University and works with the European feminist think-tank Gender5 Plus. Her research focuses on new social movements, German national identity and generational change.

 

National identity, notions of belonging and the rise of the new right on both sides of the Atlantic: Nora Krug talks about the revival of the conflicted term Heimat and the political dangers that can emerge from a misguided sense of national nostalgia. She reflects on issues of historical memory and how they can be tackled in the form of a comic book. Nora Krug is the author and illustrator of the graphic novel Belonging: A German Reckons With History and Home for which she won the 2018 National Book Critics Circle Award in Autobiography. In the book, Krug creatively investigates her family's World War II history after she married into a Jewish family in the U.S.