Public evening lecture by Professor Dr Steffen Mau (Berlin/Göttingen)

The current social and political transformation is sometimes described as a "turning point", sometimes even as an "epochal change". With the dynamisation of change, society is coming under stress, old certainties are being lost and opposing forces are gaining strength. The lecture focuses on the question of why social change is perceived as destabilising: What moments of crisis can be found? Where is there even a "crisis of crisis management"? And does the current crisis mean that we are heading towards a critical turning point that could lead liberal democracy onto a different path of development?

Steffen Mau is Professor of Macrosociology at Humboldt University in Berlin and Director at the Max Planck Institute for Multireligious and Multiethnic Societies in Göttingen. He conducts research on social change, social inequality, Europeanisation and transformation. Recent publications include Ungleich vereint. Why the East remains different (2024, Berlin: Suhrkamp), Trigger points. Konsens und Konflikt in der Gegenwartsgesellschaft (with Thomas Lux and Linus Westheuser) (2023, Berlin: Suhrkamp) and Sortiermaschinen. The Reinvention of the Border in the 21st Century (2021, Munich: CH Beck).

Moderation: Mathias Greffrath