Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht talks about the political culture of the United States, which will undergo major changes. Curse or blessing?
Tuesday, 21. March 2017, 18:30 – 20:00 h
At the University of Zurich, Rämistrasse 71, 8006 Zurich, KOL-G-201 (Aula)
New forms of politicisation and opinion-forming have also shaped the American elections. The head of the White House embodies an unusual style in dealing with the public and the media. But how will he steer the ship of state? With what intentions and goals will the last remaining superpower sail the seas of globalisation? And what does a "Trump programme" mean for the country itself, which is characterised by major upheavals both economically and socially? One thing is certain: the culture of the United States will undergo greater changes than it has in the last fifteen years. A curse or a blessing? One can and must speculate about that.
Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, born 1948 in Würzburg, is a German-American Romance scholar, university lecturer and publicist. The intellectual has lived in the USA for 28 years, becoming an American citizen in 2000. He is the Albert Guérard Professor in Literature at Stanford University and a permanent visiting professor at the Université de Montréal, the Collège de France and the Universidad de Lisboa. After studying Romance languages and literature, German studies, philosophy and sociology in Germany, Spain and Italy, he taught, for example, at the universities of Konstanz, Bochum and Siegen. Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht writes for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung and Estado de São Paulo, among others. His numerous books include "California Graffiti - Bilder vom westlichen Ende der Welt" (California Graffiti - Images from the Western End of the World), which was published in 2010 and fits our topic.