Hall of Fame – Carl Schurz Haus

GUESTS OF THE CARL-SCHURZ-HAUS – A COLLECTION 1968-2019

01.02.2019 - Frido Mann is a novelist who is best known as the “favorite grandson” of legendary German poet Thomas Mann. He has written several books, most of which are focused on his family’s history and his own memories. At a Carl-Schurz-Haus event, Mann read from and discussed his novel Das Weiße Haus des Exils.

03.12.2018
- Christoph von Marshall is a German journalist at Der Tagesspiegel. He is a diplomatic correspondent for the newspaper and has frequently reported on the U.S. White House. He has written a bestselling book on Barack Obama’s presidency and published another on German foreign policy. Von Marshall delivered a speech at a Carl-Schurz-Haus event titled „Wir verstehen die Welt nicht mehr.“ - Das Phänomen Trump.

14.11.2018
- Dr. Jackson Janes is president of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies in Washington, DC. He has worked for over four decades as a transatlantic expert and leader with relevant experience as director of the German-American Institute in Tübingen as well as of the German-Marshall Fund in Bonn. He delivered a speech at a Carl-Schurz-Haus event titled Transatlantic Stress Test - An Assessment of German-American Relations Today.

12.11.2018
- Klaus Brinkbäumer was the editor-in-chief of the German newspaper Der Spiegel from 2015-2018. He has won numerous awards including the Egon-Erwin-Kisch Prize, the Henri-Nannen Prize, and the German Reporter Award. At a Carl-Schurz-Haus event, Brinkbäumer read from and discussed his book Nachruf auf Amerika.

10.10.2018
- David Sedaris is an American comedian, author, and radio personality. He has hosted an NPR radio segment, published a multitude of essays in The New Yorker, and several of his collections of short stories have been New York Times bestsellers. He gave a reading from his book Calypso at a Carl-Schurz-Haus event.

14.09.2018
- Jennifer Clement is an American-Mexican author who served as the first female president of PEN International in 2015. She has published four novels, as well as several collections of poetry. Clement has been awarded the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Literature and the Canongate Prize among many other honors. As a guest of Carl-Schurz-Haus, she read from and discussed her New York Times Editor’s Choice book Gun Love.

06.04.2018
- Felicitas Hoppe is a German author who has written several successful novels. She is a recipient of the prestigious literary prize in German literature, the Georg Büchner Prize, among other awards and honors. At a Carl-Schurz-Haus event, she read from and discussed her work Prawda. Eine amerikanische Reise.

15.03.2018
- Andrew Sean Greer is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist and short story writer. His stories have been featured in Esquire, The Paris Review, The New Yorker, and other major publications. Greer is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel titled Less. As a guest of Carl-Schurz-Haus, Greer gave a reading from Less.

12.03.2018
- Garth Greenwell is an American poet, author, literary critic, and educator. He has published stories in The Paris Review and writes criticism for The New Yorker and The Atlantic. He has received several literary awards and is best known for his debut novel What belongs to you. Greenwell read from What belongs to you at a Carl-Schurz-Haus event.

28.02.2018
- Adam Haslett is an American writer and lawyer. His novel Imagine Me Gone won the 2017 LA Times Book Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Kirkus Prize, the Carnegie Medal, and the National Book Award. As a guest of Carl-Schurz-Haus, he read from his work Imagine Me Gone.

01.12.2017
- Colson Whitehead, an American novelist, is the author of six novels, including The Underground Railroad, for which he won the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction and the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. He read from The Underground Railroad at a Carl-Schurz-Haus event. Whitehead previously visited Carl-Schurz-Haus in 2014, when he read from his New York Times bestselling work Zone One.


07.02.2017
- Elmar Theveßen is a German TV-journalist and author. He has worked with ZDF since 1991, serving at various times as politics editor, foreign correspondent in the U.S., and deputy editor-in-chief. He has received the German television prize and the Media Award of the German Bundestag. As of March 2019, Theveßen works as director of the ZDF studios in Washington, DC. He delivered a speech titled Die Herausforderung - Islamistischer Terror oder Kampf der Kulturen? Sind von der Regierung Trump neue Konzepte zu erwarten? at a Carl-Schurz-Haus event.

20.01.2017
- Nicolas Richter is a journalist at the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. There, he has worked as the editor of research and as the Washington correspondent on American affairs. He has received prizes for journalism including the Helmut Schmidt Journalism Prize, Henri Nannen Prize, Theodor Wolff Prize, and others. Since 2018, Richter has worked as the co-director of investigative research at the SZ. He gave a speech titled Donald Trump - Präsident der Zornigen as part of Carl-Schurz-Haus’s lecture series on the 2016 U.S. elections.

17.11.2016
- Ariel Levy is an American staff writer at The New Yorker magazine and the author of The Rules do Not Apply and Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture. While at Carl-Schurz-Haus, she read from her autobiography The Rules do not Apply.

19.10.2016
- Deborah Feldman is an American writer based in Germany. She grew up as a member of the Hasidic Satmar group in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and is known for her 2012 autobiography Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots. Her second book Exodus was published in 2014.


18.10.2016
- Fiston Mwanza Mujila, a Congolese writer, composes his texts “like a jazz musician.” His first novel Tram 83 was awarded the Etisalat Prize for Literature, the Grand Prix of Literary Associations, and the German International Literature Award. At a Carl-Schurz-Haus event, he read from his acclaimed book Tram 83.

06.10.2016
- John C. Kornblum, American diplomat and businessman, is one of the leading experts on transatlantic economic and political affairs. He served as the U.S. ambassador to Germany. He gave a lecture at a Carl-Schurz-Haus event titled Eurocalypse Now“ – Hat das Projekt Europa eine Zukunft (I)?

02.10.2016
- Joseph Stiglitz is an American economist and professor at Columbia University. He is a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science (2001) and the John Bates Clark Medal (1979). Stiglitz is the former Senior Vice President and chief economist of the World Bank. At a Carl-Schurz-Haus event, he lectured about Europa spart sich kaputt. Warum die Krisenpolitik gescheitert ist und der Euro einen Neustart braucht. He previously visited Carl-Schurz-Haus in 2006, when he lectured on Making Globalization Work: Über die Chance der Globalisierung.

15.03.2016
- Hanya Yanagihara is an American writer and journalist of Hawaiian descent. She currently works as Deputy Editor-in-Chief of T: The New York Times Style Magazine. At a Carl-Schurz-Haus event, she read from her second novel A Little Life, which was on the shortlists of the Man Booker Prize (2015) and the National Book Award.


03.03.2016
- Uwe Timm is one of the most distinguished writers of the German postwar period. He has received the Bavarian Film Award, the German Youth Literature Prize, the Heinrich-Böll Prize, and the Carl Zuckmayer Medal. He read from Carl Schurz’s autobiography Lebenserinnerungen at a Carl-Schurz-Haus event.

02.07.2015
- Teju Cole is an American and Nigerian writer, photographer, and art historian. He is the winner of the 2012 PEN/Hemingway Award among many others. While visiting Carl-Schurz-Haus, he read from Every Day is for the Thief.


07.05.2015
- Joanne Shenandoah is one of the most important voices for the Native American country as well as a Grammy and multiple Nammy award-winning musician, singer, actor, lecturer, and educator. At a Carl-Schurz-Haus event, she presented her most famous and latest compositions. She previously performed at Carl-Schurz-Haus in 2012.


27.03.2015
- Rachel Kushner, an American author, is a two-time finalist for the National Book Award. Her most famous works include Telex from Cuba and The Flamethrowers. She read from The Flamethrowers at a Carl-Schurz-Haus event.


24.03.2015
- Ishmael Reed is one of today’s pre-eminent African-American literary figures. He works as a poet, novelist, essayist, songwriter, playwright, editor and publisher. He previously visited Carl-Schurz-Haus in 1988.


03.03.2015
– Susan Neiman is an American philosopher and director of the Einstein Forum in Potsdam. She delivered a lecture at Carl-Schurz-Haus titled Why grow up?


05.12.2014
- Navid Kermani is a German author of several novels, books, and essays on Islam, the Middle East, and Christian-Muslim dialogue. Among others, he has won the Peace Prize of the German Booksellers' Association in 2015. He read from Das Buch der von Neil Young Getöteten during a Carl-Schurz-Haus event.


29.10.2013
- Louis Begley is a Polish-born Jewish-American novelist. His first novel, Wartime Lies, won multiple literary prizes. Another novel, About Schmidt, was made into an Oscar-nominated movie starring Jack Nicholson. At Carl-Schurz-Haus, he read from his work Memories of a Marriage. Begley previously visited
Carl-Schurz-Haus in 2001, when he read from his work Schmidt Delivered.

14.06.2013
- Adam Johnson is an American novelist and short story writer. He won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. He read in Carl-Schurz-Haus from The Orphan Master’s Son.


17.04.2013
- Taiye Selasi, a British-American writer and photographer of Nigerian and Ghanaian origin, coined the term Afropolitan and is hailed as one of the big cosmopolitan literary novelists of our time. She read from her impressive debut Ghana must go at a Carl-Schurz-Haus event
.

22.10.2012
- Klaus Scherer of Washington, D.C. is a journalist, author, and recipient of the Grimme prize. He spoke at a Carl-Schurz-Haus event about the political situation shortly before the Presidential election.

08.05.2012
- T.C. Boyle is an acclaimed American novelist and short story writer who has received the PEN/Faulkner Award. At a Carl-Schurz-Haus event, he read from his latest work When the Killing is Done in front of an audience of 1,000 people.

07.11.2011
- Prof. Dr. Abdul Rahman Ashraf, Ambassador of Afghanistan to Germany, visited the Carl-Schurz-Haus to view Steve McCurry’s exhibit Journeys in Afghanistan.

25.10.2011 -
Philip D. Murphy, Ambassador of the United States to Germany at the time, inaugurated the first Carl-Schurz-Lecture.

17.04.2011 -
Todd Gitlin is an American sociologist, political writer, novelist, and professor of Journalism at Columbia University. He has received the Bosch Berlin Prize in Public Policy. As a guest of Carl-Schurz-Haus, he lectured about The Financial Crisis and the Media.

17.03.2011
- Maxine Hong Kingston is a civil rights activist and acclaimed Chinese-American author. At Carl-Schurz-Haus, she read from her famous work The Woman Warrior.

11.04.2010
- Nancy Fraser is a political scientist and one of the most famous American feminists, offering new critical perspectives on the crises of capitalism. She delivered a lecture at a Carl-Schurz-Haus event titled Rethinking Capitalist Crisis. On Marketization, Social Protection, Emancipation.

10.02.2010
- Berndt Ostendorf is a renowned German scholar in the field of American literature and Cultural Studies, widely noted for his studies on multiculturalism. He lectured at Carl-Schurz-Haus on Bacchus in der Neuen Welt. Eine Kulturgeschichte des amerikanischen Weins.

07.02.2010
- Jeremy Rifkin is an American economic and social theorist, bestselling author, economist, public speaker, and activist. He is the author of twenty books about the impact of scientific and technological changes on the economy, the workforce, society, and the environment. He has also served as an unpaid advisor to the European Union since 2000. He delivered a lecture at a Carl-Schurz-Haus event titled The Empathic Civilization. The Race to Global Consciousness in a World of Crisis.

01.12.2009
- Susan Howe is an American poet and critic associated with avant-garde language poetry and is also famous for her creative scholarship on Emily Dickinson. At Carl-Schurz-Haus, she read from her work Susan Howe’s Poems and Documents.

27.11.2009 -
Claus Kleber is one of the most distinguished and prize-winning German journalists. He is ZDF's primetime newscaster, a director of several documentaries on the US and the nuclear threat, as well as a long-time foreign correspondent in Washington, DC. At Carl-Schurz-Haus, he lectured on Krieg und Medien in den USA.

22.11.2009 -
Ernest Callenbach was an American film scholar, author, and journalist. He was well-known as the author of green books, particularly his ecological utopias Ecotopia (1975) and Ecotopia Emerging (1981). He delivered a lecture in Carl-Schurz-Haus titled From Capitalism to Ecotopia. He previously visited Carl-Schurz-Haus in 2001, when he delivered a lecture titled Ökotopia. 

02.11.2009 -
Elisabeth Bronfen is a renowned literary scholar, cultural theoretician, and psychoanalyst as well as a specialist in the fields of gender studies, film, cultural theory, and art. She delivered a lecture at Carl-Schurz-Haus titled Sich vom Krieg ein Bild machen. Eine kleine Fotogeschichte vom amerikanischen Bürgerkrieg bis zu Abu Ghraib.

29.10.2009 -
Carl Weissner was a German author and influential literary agent as well as a celebrated translator (and personal friend) of Charles Bukowski, William S. Burroughs, and Alan Ginsberg. He was well-known for his translations of Bob Dylan and Frank Zappa. During a Carl-Schurz-Haus event, he read works of Charles Bukowski.

25.02.2009 -
Walter Pincus is an American national security journalist for The Washington Post and a Pulitzer Prize laureate (2002), famous for his coverage of the Watergate scandal in 1974. He delivered a lecture in Carl-Schurz-Haus titled What Has Happened to the American Press?

24.06.2007 -
Prof. Saskia Sassen is an American sociologist and economist noted for her analyses of globalization and international human migration, she is credited with inventing the term Global City. She lectured at Carl-Schurz-Haus on Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages.

10.07.2006 -
Prof. Dr. John Searle is an American philosopher, widely noted for his contributions to the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind and social philosophy, as well as for his speech-act theory. He delivered a lecture at Carl-Schurz-Haus titled What is Language?

16.02.2006 -
Amiri Baraka is an African American poet, dramatist, and music critic, best known as the Father of the Black Arts Movement. He gave a lecture at Carl-Schurz-Haus and read from his work The Living Beat.

14.02.2005 -
Avi Primor is an Israeli diplomat and publicist. He served as Ambassador of Israel to Germany from 1993-1999. He delivered a lecture at Carl-Schurz-Haus titled Terror als Vorwand.

25.10.2002 -
Michael Ballhaus was a German cinematographer who, after working with Rainer Werner Fassbinder on sixteen films, became one of Hollywood’s most sought-after cameramen. He is credited with developing the legendary 360-degree tracking shot in films. During his visit in Carl-Schurz-Haus, he gave a book and film presentation and participated in a panel discussion.

26.03.2001 -
Gioconda Belli is a Nicaraguan author and novelist who resides partly in Los Angeles. She is a renowned Nicaraguan poet and was an active participant in the Sandinista struggle against the Somoza dictatorship. She read from her work Die Verteidigung des Glücks at a Carl-Schurz-Haus event.

20.04.1999 -
Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian sociologist, psychoanalyst, philosopher, and cultural critic, well known for using Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytical theories for a new reading of popular culture. When visiting Carl-Schurz-Haus, he delivered a lecture titled Liebe deinen Nächsten? Nein, danke! Die Sackgasse des Sozialen in der Postmoderne.

13.05.1998 -
Chaim Potok was an American Jewish author and rabbi (1929-2002), famous for his novels The Chosen (1967) and The Promise (1969). During his event at Carl-Schurz-Haus, he read from his book The Gates of November / Novembernächte.

23.04.1997 -
Prof. Dr. Carl Djerassi was a Nobel-prize winning chemist, novelist, and playwright best known for his the development of the first oral contraceptive pill. He delivered a lecture titled Von der Pille zur Feder at a Carl-Schurz-Haus event.

28.01.1994 -
Naomi Wolf is a feminist writer and political activist as well as the leading spokesperson of what was later described as third-wave feminism. She delivered a lecture titled Power Feminism: Towards a New Understanding of Female Power at a Carl-Schurz-Haus event.

10.12.1993 -
George McGovern was a United States Representative, Senator, and Democratic presidential nominee. As a guest of Carl-Schurz-Haus, he delivered an Honorary Lecture titled Beyond the Cold War: America and the New Global Challenge.

28.10.1993 -
Kate Millett was a feminist writer and activist. She was well known for writing Sexual Politics (1970), a classic text of feminist literature. She delivered a lecture titled Entmenschlicht. Versuch über die Praktiken der Psychiatrie during her event at Carl-Schurz-Haus.

1973 -
Prof. Ihab Hassan was an Arab-American literary theorist well known for his Concept of Postmodernism. He delivered a lecture titled Avant-Garde Trends in Contemporary American Fiction while at Carl-Schurz-Haus.

1968 -
Prof. Dr. Leslie A. Fiedler was a literary theorist and critic, famous for his groundbreaking work on postmodernism. He delivered a lecture titled Close the Gap – Cross the Border: The Case for Post-Modernism in Carl-Schurz-Haus.

 

SPECIAL EVENT:

03.04.2009 - Barack Obama, USA, at Town Hall Meeting in Strasbourg

Selected members and friends of the Carl-Schurz-Haus attended the Town Hall Meeting in Strasbourg where Barack Obama, President of the United States of America, connected with German and French Youth.