On Realism – A Critique of the Future - Special Feature

In this series of events, realism does not refer to a desire for a mere representation of reality. Rather, it addresses the question of how we speak about what is—without illusions, but also without resignation.

To be realistic here means taking social conditions seriously: their violence, their contradictions, their historical layers.

In this sense, the evening explores whether realism is an instrument of disillusionment or a prerequisite for hope: a means of not portraying the world as more beautiful than it is—in order to be able to change it at all.

In short: How do we want to live—with whom, and by what standards do we want to live?

In the event series

On Realism. Critique of the Future – Special at the Hedwig Dohm House of Humboldt University in Berlin

, brilliant minds of our time ask which reality and which history we want to trust, especially in times when political, social, and media certainties have become fragile and we are in danger of losing our footing.

In the first live episode of the

series Critique of the Future, produced by Lars Dreiucker in collaboration with ALEX Offener Kanal Berlin, the IG HDH (Hedwig Dohm House Interest Group), and Zeitpfeil e.V.,

features Manja Präkels and Annett Gröschner as guests.

The conversation focuses on literary, political, and social perspectives on realism as both an aesthetic and moral category of the present.

The author and musician Manja Präkels (*1974 in Zehdenick/Mark) lives in Berlin and Rheinsberg. In the 1990s, she worked as a local journalist in Brandenburg. In 2001, she founded her band Der Singende Tresen, and in 2009, together with her partner and collaborator Markus Liske, the creative collective WORT & TON. Among the works they co-edited are the post-reunification anthology “Kaltland” (Rotbuch 2011), the Erich Mühsam reader “Das seid ihr Hunde wert!” (Verbrecher Verlag 2014), and the polemic “Vorsicht Volk!” (Verbrecher Verlag 2015). Her novel “Als ich mit Hitler Schnapskirschen aß” (Verbrecher Verlag 2017) has been honored with the Anna Seghers Prize and the German Youth Literature Prize, among others; it has been translated into several languages and adapted for the stage multiple times. Most recently, the same publisher released the volume “Extremwetterlagen – Reportagen aus einem neuen Deutschland,” to which she contributed.