States of Exception and Sudden Democracies in 20th Century Germany

GHI West is co-hosting a lecture by Kathleen Canning with Center for German and European Studies at the Institute of European Studies (UC Berkeley). The talk is an extended think piece on the forging of democratic sensibilities as states of exception collapsed and democratic political forms were improvised and invented in 20th century Germany. The focus will be on 1918-19 with comparative reflections on 1945-48. In approaching democracy as a political form defined by recurrent crises of representation Professor Canning is interested in how democratic sensibilities are awakened in or articulated by actors and subjects who seek to convene, assemble, defend or restore democracies and to set new boundaries of belonging and participation.

Kathleen Canning is Sonya O. Rose Collegiate Professor of History and Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of History, Women's Studies and German at the University of Michigan. In January 2018 she will relocate to Rice University to assume the positions of Mellon Professor of History and Dean of the School of Humanities. Her current book project is entitled "Citizenship Effects: Gender and Sexual Crisis in the Aftermath of War and Revolution in Germany."

For more information, please email Heike Friedman.