The Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften: Events
Tuesday, 01 April 2025, 18:00Venue: Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften, Am Wingertsberg 4, 61348 Bad Homburg vor der Höhe
John McCloy Transatlantic Forum
John McCloy Lecture
Ivan Krastev (Sofia/Vienna)
»The Return of the Future and the Last Man: Politics of Demographic Imagination«
The Lecture
In the wake of the Cold War, Francis Fukuyama portrayed the »last man« as free but devoid of ambitions, polite but unheroic, somebody castrated by the satisfaction of his desires but a very agreeable fellow. He is married to democracy, but we suspect no more in love with it. The »last man« of this talk is a different one. He has arrived when history has returned. He is anxious and mistrustful. He is overtaken by demographic anxiety. He thinks he lives in the dregs of time. He tends to believe that the next elections should be the last elections. Why is he so terrified? Where does he come from? What can we expect from him? And how will he change our idea of democracy?
The Speaker
Ivan Krastev is the chairman of the Centre for Liberal Strategies and Albert Hirschman Permanent Fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences, IWM Vienna. He is a founding board member of the European Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the Board of Trustees of The International Crisis Group and member of the Board of Directors of GLOBSEC, a global think-tank committed to enhancing security, prosperity and sustainability in Europe and throughout the world. He is a Financial Times contributing editor and the author of Is it Tomorrow, Yet? How the Pandemic Changes Europe (Allen Lane/Penguin, 2020); The Light that Failed: A Reckoning (Allen Lane/Penguin, 2019), co-authored with Stephen Holmes; After Europe (UPenn Press, 2017); Democracy Disrupted. The Global Politics on Protest (UPenn Press, 2014) and In Mistrust We Trust: Can Democracy Survive When We Don't Trust Our Leaders? (TED Books, 2013). He was awarded the Jean Améry Prize for European Essay Writing and the Canadian Lionel Gelber Prize in 2020.
The John McCloy Transatlantic Forum
The John McCloy Transatlantic Forum was founded in November 2022 at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften of Goethe University Frankfurt. It promotes exchange and discussion between academia and the public with the aim of strengthening democracy not only as a form of government, but above all as a way of life. The forum works closely together with the research focus »Democratic Vistas. Reflections on the Atlantic World«.
The John McCloy Lectures
The John McCloy Lectures have been held once a year since 2022. Experts from society and academica are invited to present their perspectives on current developments for discussion in a public lecture. The first lecture (2022, in English) was given by American political scientist and advisor of the Obama administration Charles A. Kupchan, the second (2023, in German) by former Foreign Minister of Germany Sigmar Gabriel and the third (2024, in German) by the Director of the Center on the United States and Europe of the Brookings Institution Constanze Stelzenmüller.
Registration
Please register beofre March 27 at
anmeldung@forschungskolleg-humanwissenschaften.de.
Directions and Parking
Public transportation: The nearest stops are Kaiser-Wilhelms-Bad (Bus 6), Bad Homburg train station (S 5) and Gonzenheim (U 2).
By car: Please use the nearby parking facilities: the Casino parking garage with access via Weinbergsweg or the parking lot of the tennis club and Kur Royal Aktiv at Kisseleffstraße 20.