US historian Timothy Snyder keynotes 3rd Humanities Festival 40 conversations over 4 days on the topic of "Power and Powerlessness"

The third Vienna Humanities Festival – organized by IWM, Time to Talk, and Wien Museum – brings together leading thinkers from the academy, arts, and culture. They meet at a kind of urban salon, held from September 27 to 30. The 40 events, half of them in English, address the big questions of our time under the theme of “Power & Powerlessness.” The crisis of democracy and the rise of fundamentalisms are among the topics we will discuss along with ways to combat these developments.

Prominent American historian Timothy Snyder will open the festival, presenting his new and much-discussed book “The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America” at a Wiener Vorlesung in City Hall. Snyder, a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, analyzes the ascent of a new “right international” and discusses its dangers for the basic tenets of democracy.

Topics of global political relevance are central to the rest of the program as well. , historian and Rector of the Central European University (CEU) in , speaks about the need to defend academic freedom. The Belgian political scientist Chantal Mouffe makes an argument for a leftist populism as an antidote to the new right. Andreas Treichl, CEO of the Erste Group Bank, addresses the power of money and banking. A debate on the #MeToo-movement is also part of the festival’s program as is a critical analysis of gender roles and the status of women’s emancipation.

Further festival highlights concern ’s past and present. Three former leading politicians – Franz Fischler, Ulrike Lunacek, and Matthias Strolz – take stock and reflect on their experiences with the complex webs of power in Austrian and European politics. Also on the program: the Vienna premiere of Ruth Beckermann’s new film “Waldheims Walzer,” winner of the Glashütte Original Documentary Prize at this year’s Berlinale.

The festival also contributes to Austria’s memorial year of 2018, marking a century of the Republic. Leading historians reflect decade by decade on the past 100 years. Besides a discussion of major historical events, the question of power and powerlessness will take center-stage in these dialogues, which will also be flanked by an object for each of the decades from the Wien Museum’s collection.

This year’s Vienna Humanities Festival clusters once again around the city’s Karlsplatz. In addition to the Wien Museum, the Technical University and the Evangelische Schule, there is a new collaboration with the Stadtkino, which features Chris Marker’s film “A Grin Without a Cat” as well as the documentary “Zu ebener Erde”. The premiere of “Waldheims Walzer” will take the festival to the Gartenbaukino. Festival participants:

Ruth Beckermann, Birgit Bergmann, Gerhard Botz, Ayşe Buğra, Isolde Charim, Daniel Cohen, Marina Davydova, Neloufer De Mel, Karl Heinz Dellwo, Lucille Dreidemy, Franz Fischler, Steffi Franz, Regina Fritz, Michael Gehler, Béla Greskovits, Milan Hanyš, Elisa Heinrich, Elisabeth Holzleithner, Nina Horaczek, Peter Huemer, Michael Ignatieff, Maxim Kantor, Helmut Konrad, Wolfgang Kos, Konrad Paul Liessmann, Damon Linker, Steven Lukes, Ulrike Lunacek, Ina Markova, Thomas Meaney, Yascha Mounk, Chantal Mouffe, Vinh-Kim Nguyen, Alexandra Oetzlinger, Herlinde Pauer-Studer, Bertrand Perz, Martin Pollack, Katha Pollitt, Katharina Prager, Doron Rabinovici, Shalini Randeria, Oliver Rathkolb, Manfried Rauchensteiner, Margit Reiter, Elisabeth Röhrlich, Dirk Rupnow, Timothy Snyder, Saskia Stachowitsch, Matthias Strolz, Barbara Tóth, Andreas Treichl, Heidemarie Uhl, Mihai Răzvan Ungureanu, Mieke Verloo, Elisabeth von Thadden, Oliver Werani, Katarzyna Wężyk und Ruth Wodak.

Press Photos: www.wienmuseum.at/en/press

Press:

Barbara Wieser, Wien Museum T +43 1 505 87 47 - 84068 [email protected]

Angelika Seebacher, Wien Museum T +43 664 882 938 54 [email protected]

Marion Gollner, IWM T +43 1 313 58 – 207 [email protected]