In recent years, the rise of right-wing populism in Germany, France or Italy, the Brexit-decision in Britain are signals of a deep crisis in which European liberal politics, dominating since the 1980s, have got. What are the causes of this crisis? In his lecture series Andreas Reckwitz elucidates that beneath the surface of political conflict there has been a profound transformation on the economic and cultural level taking place in all European countries which swept away the foundations of former industrial modernity. As a consequence of postindustrialization and value change a new structure of social and cultural classes has emerged which imply antagonistic forms of life. Above all, the new antagonism between a new middle class and a traditional middle class turns out as the background of the political crisis.

Andreas Reckwitz is professor of sociology at the European University of Frankfurt/ Oder, Germany. He is currently Thomas-Mann-Fellow at the Thomas Mann House in Los Angeles and was awarded with the Leibniz prize 2019. He is the author of several books in the field of social theory and cultural sociology. His recent book “The Society of Singularities. The transformation of modernity” (Suhrkamp 2017) was awarded with several book prizes and is translated into five languages. He is a regular author of the German weekly paper Die Zeit.