55 Voices for Democracy – The Podcast

Award-winning director, screenwriter, and producer Patty Jenkins joined Aida and Tom at the Thomas Mann House for this special episode. Jenkins is best known for the films  Wonder Woman  (2017),  Wonder Woman 1984 (2020), and her Oscar-winning debut Monster (2003).  Wonder Woman  smashed box office records and became the highest-grossing live-action film directed by a woman at the time. During the...

"Physically putting your body in a place where history happened gives you a different sense of intimacy, a different sense of proximity to that history." In the final episode of our podcast, author, poet, and scholar Clint Smith speaks about the importance of collectively reckoning with history, the legacy of slavery in U.S.-American identity, and cultures of remembrance in the U.S. and Germany. H...

"Going through a crisis and having a positive vision of the future are not the same thing. You need to have a positive vision of the future to get through the crisis." Our hosts, Aida Baghernejad and Tom Zoellner, interview politician and publicist Marina Weisband for this special episode, recorded live at the international literatur festival berlin. After an introduction by political scientist an...

"There is an understanding that between humans we have this one thing called language and it brings us - or can bring us - together." Writer and poet Lynne Thompson talks with hosts Aida Baghernejad and Tom Zoellner about her journey to becoming a poet, the role of "truth" in poetry and its meaning for democracy. Lynne Thompson is the 2021-2022 Poet Laureate for the City of Los Angeles, and her po...

Host Tom Zoellner sat down with professor William Wiggins to discuss the ongoing importance of African-American history within the larger context of US history. Professor Wiggins has written on numerous subjects dealing with revolutionary figures and movements in U.S. history. He has taught at the University of Connecticut, St. Olaf and Allegheny Colleges, Hampton University and Columbia Universit...

"Time is a political resource. How time is distributed is a question of structures we find within a society. It's structured by the economic system we have; it's structured by gender, by race," states journalist and author Teresa Bücker. In this conversation, Bücker describes her vision for a feminist and just approach to time. Her book on the topic, "Alle_Zeit. Eine Frage von Macht und Freiheit"...

"I've been through war. I've witnessed the workings of genocide. I have gone to mass graves across the entire continent (…) We have to un-forget to get past the present fear." In this episode, writer and journalist Roberto Lovato speaks about overcoming personal and collective trauma. Lovato's work has been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, Foreign Policy, Der Spiegel, and other natio...

"Part of what has led the movement against fossil fuels is the increased number of people being confronted with the effects of oil drilling and fracking," argues energy analyst and investigative journalist Antonia Juhasz. The Senior Researcher in the Environment and Human Rights Division at Human Rights Watch talks about how our dependency on fossil fuels impacts the environment, politics, social...

"I realized that everything I learned in terms of communication, creativity, strategy and planning at university can also be used for good...for the rights of people with disabilities," states Raul Krauthausen. The inclusion activist and podcaster compares inclusion and accessibility laws in the US and Germany, and explains how Germany's reckoning with its fascist past still affects institutional...

"Until we start thinking about what people's lives are really like and not just shame them for how they vote, we're not going to have a healthy democracy," argues Sarah Jaffe. The labor journalist talks about working people's disillusionment with politics, and why seemingly incoherent protest movements shouldn't be disregarded. Does today's labor shortage give workers bargaining power? Sarah Jaffe...

"One of the things that is so fascinating about last night's midterm elections is how young people really showed up," states Geraldo Cadava, professor of history and Latina and Latino studies at Northwestern University. In this episode, he gives his fresh take on the 2022 midterm elections and discusses the diversity of the Latino community in the U.S. along with the influence religion, race, and...

While politics can involve seemingly abstract decisions, "literature can remind us of the stakes at human level," argues Boris Dralyuk.  In this episode, the translator, author and editor-in-chief of Los Angeles Review of Books talks about translators giving voice to the voiceless, and the raison d'etre of literary criticism in today's fragmented cultural landscape. Boris Dralyuk's debut poetry co...

"Some of the tension and voter  suppression we are experiencing right now is not a result of us losing, it is a result of us winning," states LaTosha  Brown, community organizer and co-founder of Black Voters Matter. In this episode, she talks about the specific mechanics that suppress Black votes, the importance of activating Black voters,  particularly in rural areas, and the power marginalized...

What makes a city a home for people with different  backgrounds? How has the pandemic impacted city planning and urban architecture? In this episode, the 2022 Thomas Mann Fellow, architect and author Doris Kleilein looks at the benefits of L.A.'s ' laissez-faire urbanism' compared to more regulated approaches in Europe. She argues that "the built visibility of a culture or minority is key to becom...

What can be done against online hate speech and deep fakes? Host Tom Zoellner talks to the political scientist & 2022 Thomas Mann Fellow Dr. Christoph Bieber about internet regulation in Europe and the U.S. Is there reason to be optimistic when it comes to our digital present and future? Bieber is professor of Political Science at the Center for Advanced Internet Studies in Bochum, Germany, where...

The Brazilian origins of his mother Júlia were initially a source of shame for Thomas Mann, but that changed in the 1920s "as his understanding of his role in society and democracy changed," claims Dr. Veronika Fuechtner. The Professor of German Studies at Dartmouth talks about the role of racial and sexual ambiguity in Mann's writing and why he emigrated to the U.S. rather than to Brazil. Fuechtn...

"Today, when politicians think you can close down libraries because everything is available online, you have to remind them that libraries are not only for books; they are for people," says Thomas Mann Fellow and former director of the Leipzig University Library, Ulrich J. Schneider. In his research, he examines the importance of public libraries in different social contexts. In this episode, Schn...

This episode focuses on what novelist and writer Rosecrans Baldwin calls "the city state Los Angeles." In his recent best-selling book  Everything Now: Lessons From the City-State of Los Angeles , the award-winning author shares his thoughts on one of the United States' most confounding metropolises – "not just a great city, but a full-blown modern city-state." Together with our hosts, Baldwin add...

When it comes to politics, "distrust is a very healthy thing," says Dr. Christine Landfried. But Dr. Landfried warns that a complete loss of trust in democratic processes lead people to disconnect from politics entirely. In this episode, the professor of political science talks about how citizens' assemblies, a new form of participation, strengthen democracy and rebuild trust in its institutions....

In this episode, author and intellectual historian of the right, Matthew Continetti talks about the past and current strains of American Conservatism. Continetti notes that the territory on which politics is conducted has moved from the size and scope of the State to arguments over the "nature of America" itself. His most recent book "The Right: The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism" was...

The fascist regime in Italy attempted early on to create a culinary nationalism by "re-writing 'la cucina povera' (the cooking of the poor) as national greatness" and to evoke a sense of pride in local produce that would ultimately support the fascist economy, argues historian Diana Garvin. Garvin is Assistant Professor of Italian at the University of Oregon, and has done extensive research on the...

Can we reframe the concept of nationalism to use it as a resource for change? Social scientist Craig Calhoun argues for a more complex understanding of nationalism. With our hosts, Calhoun also talks about the importance of social movements: they are central to give citizens a voice, which is crucial for a functioning democracy. Craig Calhoun is Professor of Social Sciences at Arizona State Univer...

Civil sea rescue by organizations such as Sea-Watch saves lives, but the fundamental problem that Europe is sealed off to many who seek refuge remains, argues Ruben Neugebauer. Neugebauer is a co-founder of Sea-Watch, a non-profit organization committed to doing search and rescue missions on the Mediterranean Sea as well as advocating safe passage for refugees. In this episode, he talks with Aida...

How can we restore trust in democratic elections and what are the problems electoral systems are facing today? With his book Will He Go? Trump and the Looming Electoral Meltdown in 2020, Lawrence Douglas predicted with shocking clarity how Trump planned to overturn the 2020 presidential election. He talks with Aida Baghernejad about ways to strengthen the electoral system and restore trust in tran...

What is negotiable in our societies? Mohamed Amjahid talks with host Aida Baghernejad about the dangers of majority rule and why, for him, protecting minorities is at the core of democracy. Amjahid is a political journalist, author and presenter. He was an editor at ZEITmagazin and was awarded the Alexander Rhomberg Prize and the Henri Nannen Prize, among others. Amjahid received wide attention fo...