Dr Miriam Meckel, Michèle Binswanger, Florian Illies, Dr Enrique Steiger and Michael Krüger talk about "Beauty cult, beauty craze"
Wednesday, 06. June 2018, 19:30 – 20:00 h
From the Studio, Schauspielhaus Zürich, Pfauen, Rämistrasse 34
A glance in the mirror is often the last thing we do before stepping out of the door. We often dismiss this as superficial, but why can’t we resist it? Have our standards, sensitivity and tools in the field of beauty changed so quickly and so drastically – from individual enchantment to a collective judgement of speckless standards? From the corset to the scalpel?
We discuss the cult and the craze around beauty with our guests. Dr Miriam Meckel is a professor at the University of St. Gallen and editor of the business magazine ‘Wirtschaftswoche’. Michèle Binswanger is an author, publicist and journalist in Zurich. Florian Illies is an author of books, a publicist and an art dealer, and lives in Berlin. Dr Enrique Steiger is a cosmetic surgeon in Zurich, spends several months of the year travelling crisis regions around the world, and founded the Swisscross Foundation. Michael Krüger is a writer and for many years was a publisher at Carl Hanser Verlag.
The panel will be moderated by Martin Meyer, former head of the feature section at the newspaper ‘NZZ’ and president of the SIAF.
Miriam Meckel was born in Hilden in 1967, studied journalism and communication science, sinology, political science and law in Münster and Taipei. After graduating, she moved into journalism before being appointed professor by the University of Münster. After a detour into politics, where she worked for one legislative period under the Minister President of North Rhine-Westphalia as a government spokesperson and state secretary, she is now back in academia. At the University of St.Gallen, she is Director of the Institute for Media and Communication Management and teaches as Professor of Corporate Communication. She is associated with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, USA, as a Faculty Associate and teaches as a Visiting Professor at the Singapore Management University. Miriam Meckel publishes in the academic field on the topics of the internet, digital life, corporate communication and media change and writes regularly for current media.
Born in 1943, Michael Krüger has enjoyed a long career as an editor and publishing director. After an apprenticeship as a publishing bookseller, he worked as a bookseller in London from 1962 to 1965. In 1968, he became an editor at Carl Hanser Verlag and eventually moved up to literary director of the publishing house in 1985. From 1995 to 2013, he took over as managing director of Carl Hanser Verlag. In 1976, Michael Krüger made his debut with the poetry collection "Reginapoly." Further literary publications in the form of poetry collections, stories, novellas and novels have followed to date. Krüger's best-known works include the poetry volumes "Nachts unter Bäumen" (1996) and "Einmal einfach" (2018), as well as the novel "Die Cellospielerin" (2000). In addition to his work as a publisher and writer, Krüger is, among other things, a member of the PEN Center Germany and a member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts. Michael Krüger has received numerous awards for his literary work. In 2004, he was awarded the grand literature prize of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts. In 2013, he was awarded The London Book Fair Lifetime Achievement Award for his life's work. In 2017, Michael Krüger received the Eichendorff Literature Prize.