From February to April 2025, Deutsches Historisches Museum, in cooperation with the Foundation Places of German Democratic History, is inviting visitors to the free discussion series ‘Berliner Mittwochsgesellschaft’ in the Pei-Bau. Accompanying the current temporary exhibition ‘What is Enlightenment? Questions for the 18th Century’, the DHM is reviving the historical format of the Wednesday Societies on five evenings. As in the Age of Enlightenment, the focus will be on discussing socio-political issues of the era. In particular, the progress, ambivalences and contradictions of the Enlightenment, which still characterise our society today, will be highlighted.
Image above: Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin (AKAMUS) © Uwe Arens.
With changing guests such as the writer Sibylle Berg, the publicist Marina Weisband and the documentary filmmaker and author Ruth Beckermann, the ‘Berliner Mittwochsgesellschaft’ offers a stage for an intellectual exchange and exciting discussions. The series will be moderated by Kai-Michael Sprenger, Director of the Foundation Sites of German Democratic History, and Julia Voss, Research Associate at the DHM.
To kick things off, on Wednesday, 5 February 2025 at 6.30 pm, media and cultural theorist Astrid Deuber-Mankowsky and philosophers Thomas Khurana and Volker Gerhardt will discuss the following topic based on Kant’s essay ‘On Perpetual Peace’ (1795): ‘How to make peace? Prerequisites and agreements of international coexistence’. They take up Kant’s consideration that the ‘state of peace among people living side by side is not a state of nature’ and ask about the conditions for a stable peace and the role of enlightenment in finding peace: How can we draw on the thoughts and methods of the Enlightenment to promote peace in today’s world?
Admission to the event is free. Registration is required online in the ticket shop or on site at the museum box office.
On Friday, 7 February 2025 at 6.30 pm, the focus will be on two Enlightenment women who were already well-known during their lifetime but marginalised by society: the DHM and the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin (AKAMUS) invite you to the James Simon Gallery auditorium free of charge. In cooperation with the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation and with the kind support of the Aventis Foundation, the ‘Hommage à Sara Levy and Phillis Wheatley’ will take place there with a concert and reading.
The emancipated Jewish woman and accomplished harpsichordist Sara Levy (1761-1854) played an important role in the German Enlightenment as a hostess of tea parties in Berlin and also collected important music. The Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin plays works by the Bach family, which Levy rediscovered and whose performance she encouraged. In addition, the actress Sira Anna Faal will read selected poems by Phillis Wheatley (around 1753-1784), who is considered the first black female author in the USA. Abducted from West Africa as a child and enslaved, Wheatley thematised racism, oppression and the transatlantic slave trade in her poems.
Admission to the event is free. Registration is required online in the ticket shop or on site at the museum box office. A maximum of two seats can be booked in one booking process.
All dates of the discussion series ‘Berliner Mittwochsgesellschaft’:
Wednesday, 05 February 2025 at 6.30 pm
How to make peace? Prerequisites and agreements for international coexistence
with Astrid Deuber-Mankowsky, Thomas Khurana and Volker Gerhardt
Moderation: Kai-Michael Sprenger and Julia Voss
‘The state of peace among people living side by side is not a natural state,’ wrote Kant in 1795 in his essay “On Perpetual Peace”. Peace must be ‘established’. But what does it mean to create peace? Is a stable peace between people possible, what would be the basic conditions for this? How peaceful was the Enlightenment? And what thoughts and methods of the Enlightenment on the question of peace can we draw on today?
Wednesday, 19 February 2025 at 6.30 pm
How do you come of age? Democratic education and the public use of reason
with Ruth Beckermann, Heinrich Bosse and Marina Weisband
Moderation: Kai-Michael Sprenger and Julia Voss
Maturity is the ‘motto of the Enlightenment’, because those who ‘use their own intellect’ are mature. It thus ascribes a great deal of personal responsibility to the individual – but what does the maturity of an individual have to do with society as a whole? To what extent can education and pedagogy contribute to an enlightened public? And what does maturity mean in today’s world?
Wednesday, 05 March 2025 at 6.30 pm
How to speak up? Democratisation processes in and through revolutions
with Sibylle Berg, Iwan-Michelangelo D’Aprile and Susanne Lachenicht
Moderation: Kai-Michael Sprenger and Julia Voss
‘Liberty, equality, fraternity”: the French Revolution’s call for freedom did not lead to the liberation of all, nor did it result in a unified solidarity movement with the socially marginalised; human rights did not include everyone. What is the relationship between emancipation and violence in the revolutions of the 18th century? Why did and do people have to fight for a say and equality and to what extent does violence play a role in this? Are there any links to today’s protest movements?
Wednesday, 19 March 2025 at 6.30 pm
How to divide powers? Republic and the rule of law in and since the Enlightenment
with Gertrude Lübbe-Wolff, Annette Meyer and Kolja Möller
Moderation: Kai-Michael Sprenger and Julia Voss
The demand for the separation of powers is a legacy of the Enlightenment and the prerequisite for a republic: Montesquieu formulated the ‘eternal experience that everyone who has power is inclined to abuse it’ and argued in favour of a constitution that would give the people more political freedom; Rousseau formulated the idea of a social contract through which governments act in the interests of the common good. But how does this work in practice? How and when was the rule of law established and developed? And what role does (did) the constitution play in this?
Wednesday, 02 April 2025 at 6.30 pm
What remains? On the legacy of the Enlightenment (practice)
with Corine Pelluchon and Barbara-Stollberg Rilinger
Moderation: Kai-Michael Sprenger and Julia Voss
Human rights were formulated in the 18th century, but the universalism formulated on paper failed to be realised for all. This ambivalence and the various facets of the era shine through to us in the 21st century and raise questions: Where does Enlightenment stand in today’s political discourses? What constitutes the legacy of Enlightenment (practice)? If we see Enlightenment as a process that continues to have an impact in the present, how can we think of a ‘new Enlightenment’?
Admission to all events is free. Registration is required online in the ticket shop or on site at the museum box office. A maximum of two places can be booked in one booking process.
The entire accompanying programme can be listened to on the DHM Soundcloud channel and on the DHM Spotify channel.
About the exhibition ‘What is Enlightenment? Questions to the 18th century”:
‘What is enlightenment?’ asked the Berlin pastor Johann Friedrich Zöllner in an article for the Berlinische Monatsschrift in 1783. The magazine took up the question and posed it to its readers. This was the beginning of a debate about this concept that was to shape the history of philosophy and inspired Moses Mendelssohn and Immanuel Kant, among others, to give their famous answers. The Deutsches Historisches Museum takes up the question of the nature of the Enlightenment in an extensive exhibition and at the same time poses further ‘questions to the 18th century’ that emerged from it.
In current socio-political discussions, the universal values of the Enlightenment are often cited or their scope questioned. At the same time, the contradictions of this era characterise the way we think and act today. The exhibition creates a historical framework for the debates of our time: it focuses on the central debates of the era and illuminates their ambivalences by presenting the ideas of the Enlightenment not as a homogeneous project of progress, but by visualising the conflicts over concepts and demands. It becomes clear that the ideas of equality and tolerance of the time do not correspond to our ideas today and were often not realised in practice. The search for knowledge and the new science, questions about religion, equality and freedom of people and demands for civil rights through to mercantilism and cosmopolitanism – the exhibition takes an international perspective on these themes of the so-called ‘long 18th century’.
WHEN?
Wednesday, 05 February 2025, 6.30 pm
How to make peace? Prerequisites and agreements for international coexistence
Friday, 07 February 2025, 6.30 pm
Hommage à Sara Levy and Phillis Wheatley – concert and reading
Wednesday, 19 February 2025, 6.30 pm
How do you come of age? Democratic education and the public use of reason
Wednesday, 05 March 2025, 6.30 pm
How do you speak up? Democratisation processes in and through revolutions
Wednesday, 19 March 2025, 6.30 pm
How to divide powers? Republic and the rule of law in and since the Enlightenment
Wednesday, 02 April 2025, 6.30 pm
What remains? On the legacy of the Enlightenment (practice)
WHERE?
Deutsches Historisches Museum
Unter den Linden 2
10117 Berlin
