What Trauma Tells Us About Ourselves as Nations. A Discussion with Asal Dardan and Karolina Wigura
REGISTER HERE
Full of fears and worries, complaining and unhappy. And yet, in moments of the greatest crises, they are mobilized and ready to fight. We inherited the ability to adapt to difficult conditions from our ancestors. History has shaped our contemporary relationships, obsessions, and fears. Do Poles and Germans share a historical trauma? What does it stem from, and how can one break free from it? And what violence against ethnic and social groups looks like and what its impact on society is, especially when the perpetrators and victims are part of the same society?
During the debate, we will try to answer the questions: Are we doomed to constantly remind ourselves of difficult history? Is trauma inherited from generation to generation? What does trauma tell us about Poles and Germans? What unites us and what divides us?How history has shaped our daily behaviors, fears, and obsessions?
Asal Dardan studied cultural studies, and Middle Eastern studies in Lund. She is currently working as a freelance writer, among others for Zeit Online, FAZ, Die Presse, and Berliner Zeitung. In 2021, Dardan published the collection of essays Betrachtungen einer Barbarin. The mostly autobiographical essays deal with topics such as origin, exclusion, racism, and womanhood. Dardan frequently comments on identity politics and feminist issues and criticizes, among other things, the inadequate processing of the NSU murder series.
Her book was nominated for the German Non-Fiction Prize in 2021 and the Clemens Brentano Prize in 2022. In January 2025, her book Traumaland was published, in which she „outlines a new topography of Germany”.
She also translates works from English into German, including those by Namwali Serpell and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
Wigura was awarded fellowships at Institute of Advanced Studies in Berlin, Robert Bosch Academy, Institute of Human Sciences in Vienna, German Marshall Fund, and St. Antony’s College at University of Oxford. In 2008, she received the Grand Press prize for her interview with Jürgen Habermas “Europe in death paralysis.” Wigura is the author of „„Posttraumatische Souveränität”, „Endo. Sztuka akceptacji choroby“, „Polka ateistka kontra Polak katolik“, „Wynalazek nowoczesnego serca“. Her work has also been published in The Guardian, The New York Times, Neue Zuercher Zeitung, Gazeta Wyborcza, and other periodicals.
Moderation: Katharina Blumberg-Stankiewicz, born in 1977 in Olsztyn, grew up in the Ruhr area and has researched and taught at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder) on migration, in- and exclusion, and belonging. She lives and works as a freelance cultural scientist in Berlin, where she co-founded the initiative „Between the Poles“. Since 2022, she has co-curated the collaborative online repository „Trauma Tables Counter-Presences“.
Project co-financed by The Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation
Meeting in English
Artist Talk: Entangled Life with Fungi with
