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News reports commenting on the current refugee situation rotate around terms like ‘crisis’ and ‘emergency.’  Both words however isolate events within the present and are apt to block out more encompassing and creative approaches including drawing on the experiences and theories brought to us by refugees from earlier eras.

With Hannah Arendt as a central figure who speaks to us both as a refugee and on refugees, ‘Thinking Beyond Crisis’ will attempt to outline the closures of presentist-ad-hoc responses and to meet Europe’s new reality in a mode of exchange and mutual adjustment rather than through technocratic ‘problem solving.’

Renowned scholars, artists, journalists and young Afghan refugees will engage in panel discussions, a poetry reading, and open Q&A to help us think and speak ‘beyond’ crisis.

The conference is a cooperation between Bard College Berlin, the Center for Contemporary History (Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam), the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College, BOX Freiraum and ‘wir machen das’

Schedule

14:00-14:30: Welcome and introductory remarks

Carolina Mojto, BOX Freiraum & ‘wir machen das’
Kerry Bystrom, Bard College Berlin
Marion Detjen, ZZF & ‘wir machen das’

 14:30-16:00: Panel One: Historical and Contemporary Migration in Eastern and Western Europe: Arendtian Perspectives

Patrice Poutrus, Universität Wien
Orwa Nyrabia, filmmaker & – producer
Jeffrey Champlin, Al-Quds Bard College
Moderator: Ewa Atanassow, Bard College Berlin

 16:00-16:30: Coffee Break

 16:30-18:00: Panel Two: Arendt on Refugees/Arendt as Refugee

 Gerhard Casper, American Academy
Roger Berkowitz, Hannah Arendt Center
Annette Vowinckel, ZZF
Moderator: Kerry Bystrom, Bard College Berlin

 18:00-18:15: Presentation of the Refugee Student Scholarship Network by Marion Detjen

 18:00-19:00: Buffet break

 19:00-19:30: Poetry reading

Ghani Atai, Abdul Baseer, Shazemir Hotaki, Mohamad Mashghdost, Yassir Niksada, Samiullah Rassouli.  With an Introduction of the poetry program at BOX Freiraum by Susanne Koelbl & Aarash D. Spanta

 19:30:20:15: ‘Speaking Beyond Crisis Today’
Discussion on the crisis-discourse in the media

 Ines Kappert, Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung & ‘wir machen das’ Susanne Koelbl, DER SPIEGEL & BOX Freiraum
Ulrich Wilhelm, Bayerischer Rundfunk
Moderator: Stephan Detjen, Deutschlandradio

 20:15: Q & A

 Followed by a reception

For more details visit: CONFERENCE WEBSITE