Democracy and Its Discontents

Panel Discussion at the German Historical Institute.

Speakers: Kathleen Canning (University of Michigan), Rüdiger Graf (Center for Contemporary History Potsdam), Donna Harsch (Carnegie Mellon University), and Dirk Schumann (University of Göttingen), and moderated by David Clay Large (University of San Francisco/University of California, Berkeley)

This panel will bring together Weimar historians to address the history of the Weimar Republic and its legacy from a fresh perspective. The current context has revived an interest in “Weimar” and thus rendered a thorough understanding of these historical considerations relevant again. This includes questions such as: How did populism manifest itself during the Weimar Republic? How was political language shaped and what was the role of the media in this process? How did perceptions of masculinity and violence play out in public discourse in the Weimar years? and How did Weimar affect how we think about democracy and the resilience of democratic structures? The panel will attempt to provide a historically nuanced view of this period.
The panel discussion will preceded by a small reception from 6:00 to 6:30pm.

This panel is organized in cooperation with the German Historical Institute.