Aleida Assmann & Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht

On this evening, Aleida Assmann and Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, two of the most important humanities scholars of our time, will meet for a special discussion. How does our view of the past shape our ability to look to the future? Do we live with “too much” memory – or is persistent remembrance a prerequisite for democratic responsibility? To what extent do ideas of the present and memory differ in Europe and the USA? A pointed exchange on memory as a burden, resistance to forgetting and the basis for a consciously shaped future.

Prof. Dr. Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht is a Romance philologist, literary scholar and publicist. His work on European literary and intellectual history as well as aesthetics has shaped international debates. In 2026 he will publish Sepp. My life at half distance.

Prof. Dr. Aleida Assmann is an English scholar, Egyptologist and literary and cultural scientist. She has taught at Yale, Princeton and Chicago, among other places. Together with her husband Jan Assmann, she coined the term “cultural memory”.