Opening of the exhibition: Ostwärts in den Westen. Die Flucht von DDR-Bürger:innen über die bundesdeutsche Botschaft in der ČSSR im September 1989

DFG Research Training Group 2686: Contradiction Studies –

Constellations, Heuristics, and Concepts of the Contradictory

DFG Research Training Group 2686: Contradiction Studies –

Constellations, Heuristics, and Concepts of the Contradictory

Opening of the exhibition: Ostwärts in den Westen. Die Flucht von DDR-Bürger:innen über die bundesdeutsche Botschaft in der ČSSR im September 1989

Natalia Wollny („Euthanasie“-Gedenkstätte Lüneburg e. V.) & Klaas Anders (RTG Contradiction Studies | Bremer Bündnis für Deutsch-tschechische Zusammenarbeit e.V.)

04/17/2023 7:00 pm –9:00 pm

U Bremen GRA 2

Opening of the exhibition with a guided tour by the curators Natalia Wollny & Klaas Anders

Welcome by Prof. Dr. Michi Knecht
Contemporary witness talk with Heiko Strohmann
Guided tour with Klaas Anders and Natalia Wollny
Followed by a champagne reception with finger food

Homepage of the exhibition

The exhibition was financed by:
Karin und Uwe Hollweg Stiftung Bundesstiftung Aufarbeitung
Arbeitnehmerkammer Bremen
Deutsch-Tschechischer Zukunftsfonds

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ideal of a contradiction-free world

“Science has long been animated by the ideal of a contradiction-free world in which logical orders could merge with society, politics, culture and language. In the GRC Contradiction Studies we are working on ways of describing the multiplicity and complexity, the danger and beauty of our worlds that clearly go beyond concepts of freedom from contradiction.”
Michi Knecht

l’illusion d’une unité

“Foucault speaks of contradiction as l’illusion d’une unité.”
Ingo H. Warnke

problem to be solved

“Contradiction is not primarily a problem to be solved but a motor we cannot do without.”
Martin Nonhoff

Bhabha on enlightenment and coloniality

“Homi Bhabha says about the contradiction between the ideals of the enlightenment, claims to democracy and solidarity and simultaneous colonization and ongoing coloniality: ‘That ideological tension, visible in the history of the West as a despotic power, at the very moment of the birth of democracy and modernity, has not been adequately written in a contradictory and contrapuntal discourse of tradition.’”
Kerstin Knopf

every day

“Living in contradictions is what we experience every day. Why do we know so little about it?”
Gisela Febel