Past Events

	Title	Date	Type	Speakers
	The Anthropologists’ Problem with Barter	Mon, 13.01.2020, 16:00	Seminars and Colloquia	Georgy Ganev Ivan Krastev	The Anthropologists’ Problem with Barter Mon, 13.01.2020, 16:00 Speakers: Georgy Ganev Ivan Krastev Series: Seminars and Colloquia The standard story of economists about the origins of money is that it came from barter. For most modern anthropologists this story is about as reasonable as the story that babies are brought by the storks. It has become such a big problem that many prominent anthropologists have recently turned against economics as a discipline in general. However, as so often in social science discourse, the anthropologists’ problem with barter has at least two sides. On the one hand, the extremely well-founded and empirically well-defended position that real life is so much more complex and nuanced than the formal lifeless economic models of the neoclassical synthesis makes the story of economists utterly untenable from both an empirical and historical perspective. On the other hand, defending this position has led almost all anthropologists to the opposite extreme, claiming that barter cannot possibly have been the origin of money, but that it has never existed in history. Thus, barter creates a problem for the apparently dominant anthropological discourse about money, because despite their claims to the contrary, it appears again and again both in historical records and in modern ethnographic descriptions of various societies. Read more
The Anthropologists’ Problem with Barter Mon, 13.01.2020, 16:00 Speakers: Georgy Ganev Ivan Krastev Series: Seminars and Colloquia The standard story of economists about the origins of money is that it came from barter. For most modern anthropologists this story is about as reasonable as the story that babies are brought by the storks. It has become such a big problem that many prominent anthropologists have recently turned against economics as a discipline in general. However, as so often in social science discourse, the anthropologists’ problem with barter has at least two sides. On the one hand, the extremely well-founded and empirically well-defended position that real life is so much more complex and nuanced than the formal lifeless economic models of the neoclassical synthesis makes the story of economists utterly untenable from both an empirical and historical perspective. On the other hand, defending this position has led almost all anthropologists to the opposite extreme, claiming that barter cannot possibly have been the origin of money, but that it has never existed in history. Thus, barter creates a problem for the apparently dominant anthropological discourse about money, because despite their claims to the contrary, it appears again and again both in historical records and in modern ethnographic descriptions of various societies. Read more
	Democracy Is (No!) Fiction	Mon, 13.01.2020, 09:30	Lecture	Ivan Krastev	Democracy Is (No!) Fiction Developing Concepts and Strategies For an Inclusive and Participatory Europe Mon, 13.01.2020, 09:30 Speakers: Ivan Krastev Series: Lecture Kick-off Event of the Jean Monnet Project “From Fictional to Functioning Democracy Developing Concepts and Strategies for an Inclusive and Participatory Europe” (FIFUDEM) Read more
Democracy Is (No!) Fiction Developing Concepts and Strategies For an Inclusive and Participatory Europe Mon, 13.01.2020, 09:30 Speakers: Ivan Krastev Series: Lecture Kick-off Event of the Jean Monnet Project “From Fictional to Functioning Democracy Developing Concepts and Strategies for an Inclusive and Participatory Europe” (FIFUDEM) Read more
	The Light That Failed. A Reckoning	Wed, 08.01.2020, 17:30 - Wed, 08.01.2020, 19:00	Panels and Discussions	Ivan Krastev Stephen HolmesMichael Ignatieff	The Light That Failed. A Reckoning Wed, 08.01.2020, 17:30 - Wed, 08.01.2020, 19:00 Speakers: Ivan Krastev Stephen HolmesMichael Ignatieff Series: Panels and Discussions Why did the West, after winning the Cold War, lose its political balance? In the early 1990s, hopes for the eastward spread of liberal democracy were high. And yet the transformation of Eastern European countries gave rise to a bitter repudiation of liberalism itself, not only in the East but also back in the heartland of the West. Krastev and Holmes argue that the supposed end of history turned out to be only the beginning of an Age of Imitation. Reckoning with the history of the last thirty years, they show that the most powerful force behind the wave of populist xenophobia that began in Eastern Europe stems from resentment at the post-1989 imperative to become Westernized. Read more
The Light That Failed. A Reckoning Wed, 08.01.2020, 17:30 - Wed, 08.01.2020, 19:00 Speakers: Ivan Krastev Stephen HolmesMichael Ignatieff Series: Panels and Discussions Why did the West, after winning the Cold War, lose its political balance? In the early 1990s, hopes for the eastward spread of liberal democracy were high. And yet the transformation of Eastern European countries gave rise to a bitter repudiation of liberalism itself, not only in the East but also back in the heartland of the West. Krastev and Holmes argue that the supposed end of history turned out to be only the beginning of an Age of Imitation. Reckoning with the history of the last thirty years, they show that the most powerful force behind the wave of populist xenophobia that began in Eastern Europe stems from resentment at the post-1989 imperative to become Westernized. Read more
	Humanity and Catastrophe	Sun, 08.12.2019, 11:00	Panels and Discussions	Katherine Younger Serhii Plokhii Sofiya DyakPhilippe Sands	Humanity and Catastrophe A Conversation with Serhii Plokhii and Philippe Sands Sun, 08.12.2019, 11:00 Speakers: Katherine Younger Serhii Plokhii Sofiya DyakPhilippe Sands Series: Panels and Discussions How do we make sense of the destruction of the 20th century? In East West Street, Philippe Sands set out to understand the role law played in processing the horrors of the Holocaust by tracing the lives of three lawyers involved in the development of “genocide” and “crimes against humanity”: two studied law in post-WWI and interwar Lemberg/Lwów/Lviv, and were Polish Jews, and the third was a defendant at Nuremberg who they prosecuted. Sands highlights the entanglement of personal biographies, political contexts, and intellectual genealogies and their echoes in the international response to Nazi crimes. The relationship between the individual and the group, and catastrophe, is also at the heart of Serhii Plokhii’s Chernobyl, which elucidates the environmental and human consequences of a dual systems failure: political as well as scientific. He shows how individual scientists and bureaucrats worked within, perpetuated, and grappled with a fatally flawed Soviet institutional structure – and how the Chernobyl meltdown contributed to the demise of the Soviet system. Read more
Humanity and Catastrophe A Conversation with Serhii Plokhii and Philippe Sands Sun, 08.12.2019, 11:00 Speakers: Katherine Younger Serhii Plokhii Sofiya DyakPhilippe Sands Series: Panels and Discussions How do we make sense of the destruction of the 20th century? In East West Street, Philippe Sands set out to understand the role law played in processing the horrors of the Holocaust by tracing the lives of three lawyers involved in the development of “genocide” and “crimes against humanity”: two studied law in post-WWI and interwar Lemberg/Lwów/Lviv, and were Polish Jews, and the third was a defendant at Nuremberg who they prosecuted. Sands highlights the entanglement of personal biographies, political contexts, and intellectual genealogies and their echoes in the international response to Nazi crimes. The relationship between the individual and the group, and catastrophe, is also at the heart of Serhii Plokhii’s Chernobyl, which elucidates the environmental and human consequences of a dual systems failure: political as well as scientific. He shows how individual scientists and bureaucrats worked within, perpetuated, and grappled with a fatally flawed Soviet institutional structure – and how the Chernobyl meltdown contributed to the demise of the Soviet system. Read more
	East West Street: A Song of Good & Evil	Sat, 07.12.2019, 20:00	Visual and Performing Arts	Philippe Sands	East West Street: A Song of Good & Evil Sat, 07.12.2019, 20:00 Speakers: Philippe Sands Series: Visual and Performing Arts A partly staged reading inspired by international human rights lawyer Philippe Sands’ award-winning bestseller about the Nuremberg trials. East West Street explores the origins of ‘genocide’ and ‘crimes against humanity’ and the path to justice. The Ratline, the book’s sequel, is to be published in April 2020. The performance focuses on the lives and ideas of three individuals from the trials: academic Hersch Lauterpacht, prosecutor Raphael Lemkin and Hitler’s lawyer Hans Frank, and the music that connected men on opposite sides of the courtroom. Read more
East West Street: A Song of Good & Evil Sat, 07.12.2019, 20:00 Speakers: Philippe Sands Series: Visual and Performing Arts A partly staged reading inspired by international human rights lawyer Philippe Sands’ award-winning bestseller about the Nuremberg trials. East West Street explores the origins of ‘genocide’ and ‘crimes against humanity’ and the path to justice. The Ratline, the book’s sequel, is to be published in April 2020. The performance focuses on the lives and ideas of three individuals from the trials: academic Hersch Lauterpacht, prosecutor Raphael Lemkin and Hitler’s lawyer Hans Frank, and the music that connected men on opposite sides of the courtroom. Read more
	Atomic Energy and the Arrogance of Man	Fri, 06.12.2019, 19:00	Lecture	Katherine Younger Serhii Plokhii	Atomic Energy and the Arrogance of Man Revisiting the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster Fri, 06.12.2019, 19:00 Speakers: Katherine Younger Serhii Plokhii Series: Lecture On the morning of April 26, 1986, the world witnessed the worst nuclear disaster in history: the explosion of a reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Soviet Ukraine. Dozens died of radiation poisoning, fallout contaminated half the continent, and thousands fell ill. In his lecture, Serhii Plokhii draws on new sources to lay bare the flaws of the Soviet nuclear industry, tracing the disaster to the authoritarian character of Communist party rule, the regime’s control of scientific information, and its emphasis on economic development over all else. Today, the risk of another Chernobyl, claims Plokhii, looms in the mismanagement of nuclear power in the developing world. Read more
Atomic Energy and the Arrogance of Man Revisiting the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster Fri, 06.12.2019, 19:00 Speakers: Katherine Younger Serhii Plokhii Series: Lecture On the morning of April 26, 1986, the world witnessed the worst nuclear disaster in history: the explosion of a reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Soviet Ukraine. Dozens died of radiation poisoning, fallout contaminated half the continent, and thousands fell ill. In his lecture, Serhii Plokhii draws on new sources to lay bare the flaws of the Soviet nuclear industry, tracing the disaster to the authoritarian character of Communist party rule, the regime’s control of scientific information, and its emphasis on economic development over all else. Today, the risk of another Chernobyl, claims Plokhii, looms in the mismanagement of nuclear power in the developing world. Read more
	Between Kyiv and Vienna	Thu, 05.12.2019, 10:00 - Sat, 07.12.2019, 16:30	Conferences and Workshops	David Petruccelli Olha Martynyuk Stefaniya PtashnykLeah Batstone, Kateryna Botanova, Harun Buljina, Kateryna Burkush, Anna Dobrowolska, Ofer Dynes, Vera Faber, Mayhill Fowler, Marcel Garbos, Corinne Geering, Olga Gnydiuk, Daniela Haarmann, Gennadii Kazakevych, Yuliya Ladygina, Barbara Lambauer, Alexandru Lesanu, Julia Malitska, Martin Rohde, Keely Stauter-Halsted , John C Swanson	Between Kyiv and Vienna Histories of People, Ideas, and Objects in Circulation and Motion Thu, 05.12.2019, 10:00 - Sat, 07.12.2019, 16:30 Speakers: David Petruccelli Olha Martynyuk Stefaniya PtashnykLeah Batstone, Kateryna Botanova, Harun Buljina, Kateryna Burkush, Anna Dobrowolska, Ofer Dynes, Vera Faber, Mayhill Fowler, Marcel Garbos, Corinne Geering, Olga Gnydiuk, Daniela Haarmann, Gennadii Kazakevych, Yuliya Ladygina, Barbara Lambauer, Alexandru Lesanu, Julia Malitska, Martin Rohde, Keely Stauter-Halsted , John C Swanson Series: Conferences and Workshops This multidisciplinary conference seeks to reexamine the modern history of the space broadly bounded today by Ukraine and Austria, through the lens of circulation and motion. It considers people who moved within, out of, and into the region, interrogating the forces that drove them and the consequences of their movement; examines the flow of ideas that were articulated, set in motion, and resonated in lived experience; and asks how the circulation of material objects, goods, and resources impacted societies and the environment, shaping the relations and hierarchies between places and people. Read more
Between Kyiv and Vienna Histories of People, Ideas, and Objects in Circulation and Motion Thu, 05.12.2019, 10:00 - Sat, 07.12.2019, 16:30 Speakers: David Petruccelli Olha Martynyuk Stefaniya PtashnykLeah Batstone, Kateryna Botanova, Harun Buljina, Kateryna Burkush, Anna Dobrowolska, Ofer Dynes, Vera Faber, Mayhill Fowler, Marcel Garbos, Corinne Geering, Olga Gnydiuk, Daniela Haarmann, Gennadii Kazakevych, Yuliya Ladygina, Barbara Lambauer, Alexandru Lesanu, Julia Malitska, Martin Rohde, Keely Stauter-Halsted , John C Swanson Series: Conferences and Workshops This multidisciplinary conference seeks to reexamine the modern history of the space broadly bounded today by Ukraine and Austria, through the lens of circulation and motion. It considers people who moved within, out of, and into the region, interrogating the forces that drove them and the consequences of their movement; examines the flow of ideas that were articulated, set in motion, and resonated in lived experience; and asks how the circulation of material objects, goods, and resources impacted societies and the environment, shaping the relations and hierarchies between places and people. Read more
	Does Capitalism Erode Democracy?	Tue, 03.12.2019, 18:00	Lecture	Shalini RanderiaEva Illouz	Does Capitalism Erode Democracy? Tue, 03.12.2019, 18:00 Speakers: Shalini RanderiaEva Illouz Series: Lecture “Does Capitalism erode Democracy?” Die israelische Soziologin Eva Illouz, die mit ihren Büchern über die Liebe im Konsumkapitalismus berühmt wurde, im Vortrag und Gespräch mit Johannes Kaup. In ihren Büchern “Warum Liebe wehtut” und “Warum Liebe endet” zeigt Eva Illouz, wie durch Selbstoptimierung, Kommerzialisierung des Intimlebens und digitale Kommunikation das Gefühlsleben zutiefst verunsichert wird. In ihrem neuesten Buch “Das Glücksdiktat und wie es unser Leben beherrscht” kritisiert die Soziologin die boomende kapitalistische Glücksindustrie, die uns weismachen will, dass wir nur dann glücklich sein können, wenn wir unsere negativen Gefühle blockieren und uns selbst optimieren. Im Anschluß an ihren Vortrag spricht Johannes Kaup mit Eva Illouz darüber, welche Faktoren zur Entfremdung zwischen Individuum, Gesellschaft und der Politik führen und welche Rolle dabei die neoliberal-kapitalistische Ideologie spielt, aber auch welche Möglichkeiten der Resilienz und des Widerstands es angesichts dieser Entwicklungen gibt. Read more
Does Capitalism Erode Democracy? Tue, 03.12.2019, 18:00 Speakers: Shalini RanderiaEva Illouz Series: Lecture “Does Capitalism erode Democracy?” Die israelische Soziologin Eva Illouz, die mit ihren Büchern über die Liebe im Konsumkapitalismus berühmt wurde, im Vortrag und Gespräch mit Johannes Kaup. In ihren Büchern “Warum Liebe wehtut” und “Warum Liebe endet” zeigt Eva Illouz, wie durch Selbstoptimierung, Kommerzialisierung des Intimlebens und digitale Kommunikation das Gefühlsleben zutiefst verunsichert wird. In ihrem neuesten Buch “Das Glücksdiktat und wie es unser Leben beherrscht” kritisiert die Soziologin die boomende kapitalistische Glücksindustrie, die uns weismachen will, dass wir nur dann glücklich sein können, wenn wir unsere negativen Gefühle blockieren und uns selbst optimieren. Im Anschluß an ihren Vortrag spricht Johannes Kaup mit Eva Illouz darüber, welche Faktoren zur Entfremdung zwischen Individuum, Gesellschaft und der Politik führen und welche Rolle dabei die neoliberal-kapitalistische Ideologie spielt, aber auch welche Möglichkeiten der Resilienz und des Widerstands es angesichts dieser Entwicklungen gibt. Read more
	How Can We Realise a Holistic Concept of Prosperity for the Many, not the Few?	Wed, 27.11.2019, 18:30	Panels and Discussions	Ivan Vejvoda Shalini RanderiaFelwine Sarr, Christoph Badelt, Sergiu Manea, Sigrid Stagl, Boris Marte	How Can We Realise a Holistic Concept of Prosperity for the Many, not the Few? 4th Tipping Point Talk Wed, 27.11.2019, 18:30 Speakers: Ivan Vejvoda Shalini RanderiaFelwine Sarr, Christoph Badelt, Sergiu Manea, Sigrid Stagl, Boris Marte Series: Panels and Discussions On 27 November, ERSTE Foundation welcomes you to the 4th Tipping Point Talk with Felwine Sarr, Professor of Economics at Gaston Berger University in Saint-Louis, Senegal. His recent book, Afrotopia, presents a holistic approach to economic and cultural interaction, or rather, the cultural foundations of economic choices. Felwine Sarr’s lecture will be followed by a stage conversation with Christoph Badelt, Sergiu Manea, Shalini Raderia, Felwine Sarr and Sigrid Stagl. Read more
How Can We Realise a Holistic Concept of Prosperity for the Many, not the Few? 4th Tipping Point Talk Wed, 27.11.2019, 18:30 Speakers: Ivan Vejvoda Shalini RanderiaFelwine Sarr, Christoph Badelt, Sergiu Manea, Sigrid Stagl, Boris Marte Series: Panels and Discussions On 27 November, ERSTE Foundation welcomes you to the 4th Tipping Point Talk with Felwine Sarr, Professor of Economics at Gaston Berger University in Saint-Louis, Senegal. His recent book, Afrotopia, presents a holistic approach to economic and cultural interaction, or rather, the cultural foundations of economic choices. Felwine Sarr’s lecture will be followed by a stage conversation with Christoph Badelt, Sergiu Manea, Shalini Raderia, Felwine Sarr and Sigrid Stagl. Read more
	Witness: Ukraine in the Photographs of Aleksandr Chekmenev	Mon, 25.11.2019, 18:00	Visual and Performing Arts	Katherine Younger Konstantin AkinshaAleksandr Chekmenev	Witness: Ukraine in the Photographs of Aleksandr Chekmenev Mon, 25.11.2019, 18:00 Speakers: Katherine Younger Konstantin AkinshaAleksandr Chekmenev Series: Visual and Performing Arts Aleksandr Chekmenev is one of the leading contemporary photographers in Ukraine. His works have frequently been published in Time, The Guardian, Vice, Libération, and many other international news outlets. But Chekmenev is not a traditional photojournalist. His photographs have often been included in exhibitions of contemporary Ukrainian art and purchased by international art museums. Read more
Witness: Ukraine in the Photographs of Aleksandr Chekmenev Mon, 25.11.2019, 18:00 Speakers: Katherine Younger Konstantin AkinshaAleksandr Chekmenev Series: Visual and Performing Arts Aleksandr Chekmenev is one of the leading contemporary photographers in Ukraine. His works have frequently been published in Time, The Guardian, Vice, Libération, and many other international news outlets. But Chekmenev is not a traditional photojournalist. His photographs have often been included in exhibitions of contemporary Ukrainian art and purchased by international art museums. Read more