Utopian Imagination and Dystopian Practices: Future in the Past/ Past in the Future
Friday, June 6, 2025 – Saturday, June 7, 2025 9 am – 5:30 pm
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Jacob-und-Wilhelm-Grimm-Zentrum, Geschwister-Scholl-Straße 1/3, 10117 Berlin The era of polycrisis – regardless of what underlies it (environmental threats, the failure in the global security system, world growth of inequality, the undermining of civil society, coming both from authoritarian regimes and from the democratic politics of populism) – requires not only a reaction, taking into account the current challenges of the present time. It needs an anticipatory, projective thinking capable of responding to current problems based on inspiring examples of the past and visionary breakthroughs into the future. Civic activism and educational practices need these symbolic resources as much as contemporary art, political theory, and economic modelling. Perhaps it is the u(dys)topian perspective that will be able to bridge the gap between theory and practice, activism and academia, scientific rationality and poetic imagination, anthropocentrism and planetary habitability.
The search for the ideal society of Plato’s Republic and the Medieval messianic descriptions of paradise on Earth took on new forms during the Renaissance, when in the early 16th century Thomas More coined the neologism utopia – a place that does not exist, or a better place. For a long period, the phrase of Oscar Wilde that “Progress is the realisation of utopias” inspired modernity. However, enthusiasm gave way to disappointment as Svetlana Boym put it “The twentieth century began with a futuristic utopia and ended with nostalgia”. The attempt to realize utopias is inherently hopeless. The literary genre is clearly losing to dystopias. As early as the 1980s, Herbert Marcuse spoke of the end of utopia, and Jürgen Habermas referred to the exhaustion of utopian energies, seeing the decline of the welfare state and the ideal of a laboring society of free and equal producers.
Nevertheless, the interest in searching for ideal forms of collective life, both for local communities and humanity as a whole, has not diminished. Nor has the desire to explode the present, harmonize it, and make it more just, happy, free, prosper and in harmony with nature and future generations. The working language of the conference is English.
Utopian Imagination and Dystopian Practices: Future in the Past/ Past in the Future
Friday, June 6, 2025 – Saturday, June 7, 2025 9 am – 5:30 pm
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Jacob-und-Wilhelm-Grimm-Zentrum, Geschwister-Scholl-Straße 1/3, 10117 Berlin The era of polycrisis – regardless of what underlies it (environmental threats, the failure in the global security system, world growth of inequality, the undermining of civil society, coming both from authoritarian regimes and from the democratic politics of populism) – requires not only a reaction, taking into account the current challenges of the present time. It needs an anticipatory, projective thinking capable of responding to current problems based on inspiring examples of the past and visionary breakthroughs into the future. Civic activism and educational practices need these symbolic resources as much as contemporary art, political theory, and economic modelling. Perhaps it is the u(dys)topian perspective that will be able to bridge the gap between theory and practice, activism and academia, scientific rationality and poetic imagination, anthropocentrism and planetary habitability.
The search for the ideal society of Plato’s Republic and the Medieval messianic descriptions of paradise on Earth took on new forms during the Renaissance, when in the early 16th century Thomas More coined the neologism utopia – a place that does not exist, or a better place. For a long period, the phrase of Oscar Wilde that “Progress is the realisation of utopias” inspired modernity. However, enthusiasm gave way to disappointment as Svetlana Boym put it “The twentieth century began with a futuristic utopia and ended with nostalgia”. The attempt to realize utopias is inherently hopeless. The literary genre is clearly losing to dystopias. As early as the 1980s, Herbert Marcuse spoke of the end of utopia, and Jürgen Habermas referred to the exhaustion of utopian energies, seeing the decline of the welfare state and the ideal of a laboring society of free and equal producers.
Nevertheless, the interest in searching for ideal forms of collective life, both for local communities and humanity as a whole, has not diminished. Nor has the desire to explode the present, harmonize it, and make it more just, happy, free, prosper and in harmony with nature and future generations. The working language of the conference is English.
ICI Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry (Christinenstr. 18/19, Haus 8 10119 Berlin) Ghosts are first and foremost figurations of power. By giving intersubjective communication a form that can challenge anthropocentrism and Western conceptualizations of Nature, ghosts have the ability to generate alternative histories. This renegotiation of past events is particularly important in the context of colonialism. Yet, while this characteristic can certainly be instrumentalized for recuperative purposes, it can also be a narrative tool that supports forms of othering and exclusion. In fact, in literature, film, and culture ghosts can and have been mobilised to perpetuate unjust social structures. Particularly the haunted forest has often served as the matrix through which racial subordination has been put in the service of subject formation. A ghost is a reminder that history is not the past, or as William Faulkner famously put it: ‘The past is never dead. It’s not even past’. But who is reconfiguring the past in the present? This discussion is led by the often-neglected question, who is hosting the ghost? Ghosts may have the ability to expose the narrativity of history, but they do not necessarily function as a corrective. Based on Sladja Blažan’s recent book Ghosts and Their Hosts: The Colonisation of the Invisible World, the discussion will focus on ways in which settler colonial imaginaries are reproduced and sustained through cultural and personal narratives that centre on spectral land. Particularly forests will be at the centre of attention.
Registration is required and opens here on June 5, 2025Sponsored by: ICI Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry.
Bard Berlin Summer Theater Intensive Final Project Showings
Three Performances
Saturday, June 28, 2025 1–2:30 pm
The Factory (Eichenstraße 43, Berlin 13156) We would like to invite you to the final project showings of the students who have participated in this summer’s theater intensive.
1:00 pm - Performances begin at the Factory. There are three 20-minute pieces with a 5-minute break between pieces. 2:30 pm - Pizza reception at the Cafeteria at Waldstraße 70. Everyone is welcome. 4:00 pm - Feedback session with the students begins at the cafeteria, and again, everyone is welcome to attend.
It would be helpful for us to know how many people might attend and how much pizza to order, so if you are interested in coming please RSVP to [email protected].Sponsored by: Bard Abroad.
Utopian Imagination and Dystopian Practices: Future in the Past/ Past in the Future
Friday, June 6, 2025 – Saturday, June 7, 2025 9 am – 5:30 pm
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Jacob-und-Wilhelm-Grimm-Zentrum, Geschwister-Scholl-Straße 1/3, 10117 Berlin The era of polycrisis – regardless of what underlies it (environmental threats, the failure in the global security system, world growth of inequality, the undermining of civil society, coming both from authoritarian regimes and from the democratic politics of populism) – requires not only a reaction, taking into account the current challenges of the present time. It needs an anticipatory, projective thinking capable of responding to current problems based on inspiring examples of the past and visionary breakthroughs into the future. Civic activism and educational practices need these symbolic resources as much as contemporary art, political theory, and economic modelling. Perhaps it is the u(dys)topian perspective that will be able to bridge the gap between theory and practice, activism and academia, scientific rationality and poetic imagination, anthropocentrism and planetary habitability.
The search for the ideal society of Plato’s Republic and the Medieval messianic descriptions of paradise on Earth took on new forms during the Renaissance, when in the early 16th century Thomas More coined the neologism utopia – a place that does not exist, or a better place. For a long period, the phrase of Oscar Wilde that “Progress is the realisation of utopias” inspired modernity. However, enthusiasm gave way to disappointment as Svetlana Boym put it “The twentieth century began with a futuristic utopia and ended with nostalgia”. The attempt to realize utopias is inherently hopeless. The literary genre is clearly losing to dystopias. As early as the 1980s, Herbert Marcuse spoke of the end of utopia, and Jürgen Habermas referred to the exhaustion of utopian energies, seeing the decline of the welfare state and the ideal of a laboring society of free and equal producers.
Nevertheless, the interest in searching for ideal forms of collective life, both for local communities and humanity as a whole, has not diminished. Nor has the desire to explode the present, harmonize it, and make it more just, happy, free, prosper and in harmony with nature and future generations. The working language of the conference is English.
Utopian Imagination and Dystopian Practices: Future in the Past/ Past in the Future
Friday, June 6, 2025 – Saturday, June 7, 2025 9 am – 5:30 pm
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Jacob-und-Wilhelm-Grimm-Zentrum, Geschwister-Scholl-Straße 1/3, 10117 Berlin The era of polycrisis – regardless of what underlies it (environmental threats, the failure in the global security system, world growth of inequality, the undermining of civil society, coming both from authoritarian regimes and from the democratic politics of populism) – requires not only a reaction, taking into account the current challenges of the present time. It needs an anticipatory, projective thinking capable of responding to current problems based on inspiring examples of the past and visionary breakthroughs into the future. Civic activism and educational practices need these symbolic resources as much as contemporary art, political theory, and economic modelling. Perhaps it is the u(dys)topian perspective that will be able to bridge the gap between theory and practice, activism and academia, scientific rationality and poetic imagination, anthropocentrism and planetary habitability.
The search for the ideal society of Plato’s Republic and the Medieval messianic descriptions of paradise on Earth took on new forms during the Renaissance, when in the early 16th century Thomas More coined the neologism utopia – a place that does not exist, or a better place. For a long period, the phrase of Oscar Wilde that “Progress is the realisation of utopias” inspired modernity. However, enthusiasm gave way to disappointment as Svetlana Boym put it “The twentieth century began with a futuristic utopia and ended with nostalgia”. The attempt to realize utopias is inherently hopeless. The literary genre is clearly losing to dystopias. As early as the 1980s, Herbert Marcuse spoke of the end of utopia, and Jürgen Habermas referred to the exhaustion of utopian energies, seeing the decline of the welfare state and the ideal of a laboring society of free and equal producers.
Nevertheless, the interest in searching for ideal forms of collective life, both for local communities and humanity as a whole, has not diminished. Nor has the desire to explode the present, harmonize it, and make it more just, happy, free, prosper and in harmony with nature and future generations. The working language of the conference is English.
ICI Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry (Christinenstr. 18/19, Haus 8 10119 Berlin) Ghosts are first and foremost figurations of power. By giving intersubjective communication a form that can challenge anthropocentrism and Western conceptualizations of Nature, ghosts have the ability to generate alternative histories. This renegotiation of past events is particularly important in the context of colonialism. Yet, while this characteristic can certainly be instrumentalized for recuperative purposes, it can also be a narrative tool that supports forms of othering and exclusion. In fact, in literature, film, and culture ghosts can and have been mobilised to perpetuate unjust social structures. Particularly the haunted forest has often served as the matrix through which racial subordination has been put in the service of subject formation. A ghost is a reminder that history is not the past, or as William Faulkner famously put it: ‘The past is never dead. It’s not even past’. But who is reconfiguring the past in the present? This discussion is led by the often-neglected question, who is hosting the ghost? Ghosts may have the ability to expose the narrativity of history, but they do not necessarily function as a corrective. Based on Sladja Blažan’s recent book Ghosts and Their Hosts: The Colonisation of the Invisible World, the discussion will focus on ways in which settler colonial imaginaries are reproduced and sustained through cultural and personal narratives that centre on spectral land. Particularly forests will be at the centre of attention.
Registration is required and opens here on June 5, 2025Sponsored by: ICI Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry.
Bard Berlin Summer Theater Intensive Final Project Showings
Three Performances
Saturday, June 28, 2025 1–2:30 pm
The Factory (Eichenstraße 43, Berlin 13156) We would like to invite you to the final project showings of the students who have participated in this summer’s theater intensive.
1:00 pm - Performances begin at the Factory. There are three 20-minute pieces with a 5-minute break between pieces. 2:30 pm - Pizza reception at the Cafeteria at Waldstraße 70. Everyone is welcome. 4:00 pm - Feedback session with the students begins at the cafeteria, and again, everyone is welcome to attend.
It would be helpful for us to know how many people might attend and how much pizza to order, so if you are interested in coming please RSVP to [email protected].Sponsored by: Bard Abroad.
Time to Act: Embedding Sustainability in Higher Education
A Webinar About Sustainable Change
Thursday, June 26, 2025 11 am – 12:30 pm
With the 2030 deadline for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) looming and global challenges intensifying, the role of higher education in advancing sustainability has become urgent. This webinar will explore how individual academics, staff, and universities can become agents for sustainable change. Panelists include Professor Fernando Reimers of Harvard University and Dr Debra Rowe, president of the US Partnership for Education for Sustainable Development, among others.
The webinar is co-hosted by University World News and ABET, a US-based quality assurance and accreditation agency. Online Event Sponsored by: Office of Sustainability.
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