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Charles Haimoff Lecture in German Studies

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Journalist Andrea Bernstein turns to her intellectual inheritance as a roadmap to politics in 2026

Journalist Andrea Bernstein is the daughter of the late Richard J. Bernstein, a scholar of Hannah Arendt, and Carol L. Bernstein, an expert on cultural memory who took Walter Benjamin as her muse. For years, Andrea Bernstein saw her own work covering American politics and corruption in a separate sphere from her parents’ work. But as the twenty-first century increasingly sounds the notes of the first half of the previous century, it has become clear to Bernstein that her spheres of inquiry and those of her parents were converging. In this lecture, Bernstein leans on her journalistic tools and intellectual inheritance to explore how can we build upon the scholarship of Arendt and Benjamin—and her parents’ interpretation of them—to create a new intellectual roadmap to guide us forward as we struggle to defend facts, truth, and democracy.

Andrea Bernstein is a Peabody and duPont-Columbia award-winning investigative journalist, and accomplished author, speaker, and Visiting Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University. She is also a frequent expert guest on well-known news shows, including Frontline, PBS Newshour, CNN, BBC, and CBC Documentary. Bernstein holds a BA cum laude from Yale University and was a JSK Journalism Fellow at Stanford University. She is the New York Times bestselling author of American Oligarchs: The Kushners, The Trumps, and the Marriage of Money and Power (W.W. Norton, 2020) and podcast creator and co-host of Trump, Inc. (WNYC and ProPublica), Will Be Wild (Pineapple Street Studios, Amazon, & Wondery), We Don’t Talk About Leonard (ProPublica and On The Media), and The Law According to Trump (Slate). She covered all five trials of Donald J. Trump and his business for NPR.

Pop und zeitgenössische Lyrik: Klingt das dissonant oder wahlverwandt? Was ist überhaupt das Populäre in der Literatur? Und wie kritisiert man es angemessen?

Die Kritikerin Marie Luise Knott, der Literaturwissenschaftler Moritz Baßler und der Kulturjournalist Kevin Schieber diskutieren mit dem zæsur-Redakteur Asmus Trautsch über die Rolle des Populären in der gegenwärtigen Lyrik und Erzählliteratur sowie die Frage, wie populäre Literaturkritik durch Humor, Zuspitzung und ernsthafte Auseinandersetzung ein neues, größeres und jüngeres Publikum erreichen kann. Ein Abend über literarische Wertung, digitale Öffentlichkeiten und die Zukunft der Kritik.

Marie Luise Knott ist vielfach ausgezeichnete Essayistin und Übersetzerin, u.a. von Anne Carson, seit 2013 erscheint ihre Lyrik-Kolumne Tagtigall im Perlentaucher. Eine Auswahl ihrer Kritiken ist jüngst bei Matthes & Seitz erschienen (Die Gesänge der Tagtigall, 2026). Moritz Baßler ist Professor für Neuere deutsche Literatur an der Universität Münster. Er zählt zu den prägenden Stimmen der deutschsprachigen Gegenwartsliteraturforschung und arbeitet insbesondere zu Popliteratur. Mit seinem viel diskutierten Buch Populärer Realismus. Vom International Style gegenwärtigen Erzählens (C.H. Beck 2022) legte er eine einflussreiche Analyse der Formen und Erfolgsbedingungen zeitgenössischer Erzählliteratur vor. Kevin Schieber ist seit 13 Jahren in den Medien aktiv. Seit 2026 ist er Programmdirektor bei Antenne Deutschland/Absolutradio, dessen „hottesten Morgen Deutschlands“ er einige Jahre moderierte. Sein Instagram-Kanal „der kevschieber“ präsentiert anspruchsvoll-komische Kritiken von Memes und popkulturellen Ereignissen.

Eine gemeinsame Veranstaltung von zæsur.poesiekritik und Haus für Poesie

Gefördert aus Mitteln der Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalt des Landes Berlin

In Lesung & Gespräch Moritz Baßler, Marie Luise Knott, Kevin Schieber
Moderation Asmus Trautsch

Eintritt:8/5 €

Why do we value diversity, and what kind of value is it? In their brand new books, Diversity: The History of a Wandering Value and The Diversity Principle: The Story of a Transformative Idea, historian of science Lorraine Daston and legal scholar David B. Oppenheimer answer these questions by tracing the lineage of the value of diversity in natural history and debates over academic freedom, in court cases and in displays of imperial power.

Drawing on their books, they will explore the changing meanings of diversity and the arguments that have been made it a value, both past and present. In a friendly exchange that welcomes disagreement, they will ask where the case for diversity is strongest, where it may clash with other values, and what its history can teach us about the contentious debates over diversity today.

In cooperation with Wissenschaftskolleg Berlin

Lorraine Daston is Director emerita at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, Visiting Professor in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, and Permanent Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. Her work spans a broad range of topics in the early modern and modern history of science, including probability and statistics, wonders and the order of nature, scientific images, objectivity, observation, rules, and the moral authority of nature. Her most recent books are Rules: A Short History of What We Live By (2022), Rivals: How Scientists Learned to Cooperate (2023), and Diversity: The History of a Wandering Value (2026). She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the American Philosophical Society, the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, the Leopoldina, and a corresponding member of the British Academy.

David B. Oppenheimer is a Clinical Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, and Co-Director of the Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality and Anti-Discrimination Law. He holds a JD degree from Harvard. In his clinical work he has consulted on over 100 discrimination and harassment cases in Asia, Europe, North America, and Latin America. He is the author or editor of ten books on US and global discrimination law. His newest book, The Diversity Principle: The Story of a Transformative Idea, was published in 2026 by Yale University Press.

For more information, e-mail e.atanassow@berlin.bard.edu.