55 Voices for Democracy – The Podcast

Poet and writer Max Czollek talks about why German remembrance culture seems staged to him, and what a radically diverse society might look like. Czollek's recent books "Gegenwartsbewältigung“ (Copin…

How can societies and states reinvent themselves after the pandemic? Andreas Reckwitz, sociologist, cultural theorist and one of Germany’s most eminent contemporary scholars, talks about what the COV…

Historian Keisha N. Blain, Professor at the University of Pittsburgh and President of the African American Intellectual History Society, recently co-edited the acclaimed book Four Hundred Souls: A Co…

55 Voices for Democracy is modeled after the BBC radio speeches, through which Thomas Mann in the mid 1940s pleaded to thousands of listeners to resist the Nazi regime. In this podcast series, intell…

In this episode, U.S.-German writer Deborah Feldman engages in a conversation with hosts Tom Zoellner and Aida Baghernejad about contemporary Jewish culture in Berlin, political participation by reli…

In this special episode of our podcast, the award-winning investigative and political reporter John S. Adams talks about money, politics and its effect on democracy. While there was always "money in …

We have to step up and accept our responsibility for all of the implications that technology has created.” Brad Smith, President of Microsoft and author of the book Tools and Weapons: The Promise and…

Pianist Igor Levit talks with our hosts about the persistence of the arts in the face of political threats and why Europeans should work against their feelings of cultural superiority. While Igor Lev…

In this episode, Belgian political theorist Chantal Mouffe reflects on the question of why democracy has to be turbulent and how to foster a democratic ethos of equality and social justice. In her co…

The German-Austrian novelist and playwright Daniel Kehlmann talks with host Tom Zoellner and co-host Aida Baghernejad about the reasons for the rise of populist politicians and "literature as the ult…

The former German Ambassador to the U.S. and Chairman of the Munich Security Conference speaks about Europe's position in international politics. In the interview with host Tom Zoellner and co-host A…

The guests in this episode are the Belarusian opposition politicians Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and Franak Viačorka. Tsikhanouskaya, who ran for president in the 2020 elections, is currently in exile i…

How should democracies deal with the increasing power of tech companies? This episode features Dipayan Ghosh, a former technology and economic policy advisor in the Obama White House. Ghosh conducts …

Conny McCormack has served as an international observer of fair elections in Albania, Ecuador, Finland, Panama, Zambia and other countries. She had been the Registrar-Recorder and County Clerk for Lo…

David Shimer is a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and an Associate Fellow at Yale University. His reporting and analysis have appeared in the New York Times, the…

Polymath author of twenty books, writer, historian, essayist, urban geographer and activist Rebecca Solnit is our inaugural guest on 55 Voices for Democracy. The author of, among other books, Men Exp…