Society

Shoshana Liessmann
Commemorating Immanuel Kant

On the 300th anniversary of his birth, Immanuel Kant will be celebrated in 2024 as a revolutionary thinker and one of the most prominent philosophers of the Enlightenment. But at the same time, his philosophical cosmos and persona will also be under critical scrutiny. Shoshana Liessmann provides an overview.

Fun Facts
How Well Do You Know Kant?

Cities in Germany
City Contours

German cities are as diverse as the landscape that surrounds them. In our series of city portraits, we embark on a journey through Goethe's homeland. In this series of city portraits, follow our authors on a journey through Goethe's homeland and take a closer look at the small and large things that make their cities so unique and lovable.

History
German Traces in Canada

Discover Canada from a new perspective and join us on a multimedia search for traces of German immigration in Canada.

The German Language Column
Word!

The rules of the language, the origin of new vocabulary and the latest, most important changes in the use of the language - these and other exciting topics are the focus of our column about the German language.

News from society

Gegenüber
The Digital Magazine of the Goethe-Institut in North America

In October, the Goethe-Institut in North America launched the transatlantic online magazine Gegenüber. Gegenüber connects perspectives from across (German: gegenüber) the Atlantic, in Germany and North America. Our editorial team and contributors from Canada, Mexico, Germany, and the United States offer balanced perspectives with multimedia pieces on societal issues, art, business, and science. Gegenüber tackles transatlantic topics, German-American quirks, and common denominators, offering a political interpretation of culture and a cultural interpretation of politics.

A desk with a lamp, metronome and book on it and an empty chair inside a glass box: this is a memorial on Frankfurt’s Goethe University campus to the philosopher Theodor W. Adorno.

Frankfurt School
Conceiving a New Society

The Institute for Social Research (IfS), known internationally as the “Frankfurt School”, was founded a hundred years ago. Its most seminal thinkers still inform our conception of society today. What may well be their most important legacy is their contention that a different world is possible.

Trust and Society
The Invisible Institution

How did trust come to loom so large in the self-definition of contemporary societies? Philosopher Martin Hartmann presents some possible explanations.

Open Memory Box
A box, filled with memories

For many years, surprisingly little was known about everyday life in the socialist East of pre-1989 divided Germany. The "Open Memory Box" changes that with a series of everyday, and for that very reason spectacular, home videos.

Pet Tigers
Cats Are (As Of Yet) Always Good Content!

“Cats are always good content” has been an unwritten and irrefutable marketing law since the commercial internet was invented. No great surprise, really, since the fluffy pet tiger still tops the list of Germans’ favourite animals. Ten famous cats from art, politics and social media.

Germany, that’ll be beer and of course the Oktoberfest. However, when it comes to beer consumption per person, the Czechs are way ahead, while the Germans only make seventh place in the international rankings.

Stereotypes
Germany For Experts

So Germans are punctual, humourless, drink beer and are world champion travellers? We’ve subjected seven stereotypes about Germany to close scrutiny, and made some surprising discoveries.

A children’s birthday in Germany just wouldn’t be the same without saucepans and streamers.

Children’s birthday parties in Germany
Classics like the sack race and marble cake

In Germany, a traditional children’s birthday party includes Topfschlagen, literally ‘hitting the pot’, and egg-and-spoon and sack races. Jonas is looking forward to playing the classic games and a delicious birthday feast to celebrate turning four.

Many diverse toy barbies against black background

Internalised Misogyny
The Anti-Women Attitude inside Us

Discrimination comes from outside – many people think. Yet we all internalise misogyny. Why is that?

There was life in the old dog yet! At the time this picture was taken in 1990, Nelson Mandela should have been dead a long time before, if we rely on the memories of many of his contemporaries. His supposed passing away is the inspiration for the phenomenon of collective false memories - the Mandela effect.

False Memory
The Mandela Effect

Whether it is a case of believing someone has long since died, although he or she is still in fact enjoying the best of health, or singing song lyrics with the wrong words – when many people collectively remember things falsely, we speak of the Mandela effect. It could never happen to you, right? A look at our examples might prove you wrong.

The New World of Work

The Swiss Basic Income association took the idea all the way to a referendum – but the Swiss people voted against it.

Universal Basic Income
A Utopian Pipedream or a Necessary Paradigm Shift?

The idea of guaranteeing everyone an unconditional basic income seems tempting to many people. But laypeople and experts alike have been arguing for many years about whether – and, above all, how – it might work. A pilot project in Berlin is now looking for new answers to these and related questions, which could rekindle the debate in Germany.

Once the best, now forgotten: abandoned factories like the one here in Duisburg can often be seen in these regions that are now structurally weak.

Economy
A Wasteland Where People Feel Left Behind And Ignored

Structural weaknesses in rural areas are often overlooked. Economic development scarcely happens there, and they are rarely in the spotlight for their climate protection measures either. Researchers went to these regions to investigate how the situation could be improved.

Sustainability

Greenwashing
Green Lies: Trust Is Bad, Control Is better

Greenwashing not only dupes consumers; it also stands in the way of real change. Ecological promises and voluntary certifications have long led the public to believe that the global economy is getting greener all on its own. But that is simply not the case. A new law is being passed to fix it.

An algae unit for algea production consisting of a row of pipes

Alternative Energies
The Path Away from Oil

Because of global warming, the oil era is coming to an end. This is something that countries and even oil companies themselves have understood. The challenge for the global community now is to find alternatives to oil that do not release greenhouse gases. How can this be achieved?

Urban Farming
Agriculture 2.0

The innovative use of urban space for agricultural purposes offers some interesting solutions to many of the problems faced by the food industry. Lufa Farms in Montreal put the idea of rooftop greenhouses into practice and today operates the world’s largest rooftop farm.

Bad Berleburg in North Rhine-Westphalia received the German Sustainability Award for Small Towns in 2020.

Sustainable Towns
Digital villages, green towns

Germany’s most sustainable towns and cities rely on the participation of their residents. Quite a lot can be achieved even with comparatively few financial resources.

Will over 30 kilometres of cable car system soon be transporting passengers across the Rhine in Cologne?

Air quality
Working towards cleaner air in Germany’s cities

Anyone in search of a deep, refreshing lungful of fresh air should probably head to the mountains or the seaside. A big city is unlikely to offer prime quality air. More and more German cities are taking measures to clean up the air.

Dance party with a dark side: open-air music festivals emit huge amounts of CO2.

Green Touring
Culture should not destroy the climate

Artists and producers from the music scene are actively interested in environmental conservation. Some question whether preventing plastic waste at festivals and concerts is enough though when the travel involved in touring itself produces tons of CO2.

Cheap to produce, but with catastrophic consequences for the environment: lignite mining.

Phasing out coal
The energy revolution

Working towards sustainable energy for the future: Germany wants to completely abandon coal mining by 2038, an ambitious goal with quite a few obstacles still blocking the way.

Spaces

Renovated historical building in a good neighbourhood: this dream flat is out of reach of many these days.

Protecting tenants
Ideas from Berlin to rein in skyrocketing rents

It is almost impossible to find an affordable flat in many parts of Germany’s capital today. This may soon change though, now that the rent cap law went into force in Berlin in March 2020. It freezes existing rents for a period of five years. But it is not the only means of protecting Berlin’s tenants.

More on Society

Fear of losing control makes people more vulnerable to conspiracy ideologies. This is happening during the corona pandemic: participants at a so-called hygiene demonstration in Berlin expressing opposition to government measures to contain the pandemic.

Conspiracy myths
“It will wipe the smile right off your face”

People are more vulnerable to conspiracy ideologies when they fear a loss of control, making the corona pandemic the perfect storm. In an interview, political scientist and net activist Katharina Nocun explains how we should react when encountering people who subscribe to conspiracy theories.

Generalgouverneurin Mary Simon klatscht in Gebärdensprache für Veronique Leduc aus Montreal, nachdem sie die Meritorious Service Medal (Civil Division) bei der Verleihung der kanadischen Ehrungen in der Rideau Hall in Ottawa am 17. September 2021 erhalten hat.

Inclusion
Seeing Deaf People, Hearing Their Demands

Neither top nor bottom of the class, Canada is slowly but surely moving towards accessibility for the deaf community.

<i>Currywurst</i> snack stand in Berlin, the birthplace of the spicy, saucy, German sausage speciality.

Celebrating the currywurst
The curried sausage, an icon of German cuisine

In addition to roast pork with dumplings, a pork joint with sauerkraut, and potato salad, no list of German national dishes would be complete without the humble currywurst or curried sausage. The spicy snack was invented 70 years ago.

Gaming
Machiavellis Erben

Very few computer games explicitly deal with current politics, but this in no way means the gaming world is apolitical.

German(y)
The TOP 40 German Inventions

Germans have invented many things we couldn’t live without anymore. We’ve limited a very long list to our personal “TOP 40 Inventions, Discoveries and Breakthroughs”.

Tourism
Undiscovered Germany

As a holiday destination, Germany attracts visitors from all over the world because of its rich cultural and natural heritage. But what does Germany have to offer besides Cologne Cathedral, the Semper Opera House and Schloss Neuschwanstein? Check here to discover sights that you may not have been aware of.

Feminism and language
To gender or not to gender? That is the question!

The German language, like the French, is considered male-dominated. In recent years, there have therefore been numerous attempts to get to the root of the problem in the language on both sides of the Rhine and fix it. And so here too the battle of the sexes has been raging.

Draft for Masdar City central square, the first carbon neutral, zero-waste, and car-free city.

Smart Cities
Sustainable eco-cities

Intelligent technologies promise smart cities that are luxurious and comfortable while protecting the environment and conserving resources. But the smart city also means blanketing public spaces with sensors that follow us at every turn.

Gingerbread hearts are simply part and parcel of a traditional fair in Germany. | © Jakob Rondthaler und Ute Elena Hamm

Traditional Fairs in Germany
Of Cotton Candy and Zeitgeist

Carrousel, oompah music and the aroma of bratwurst and spun sugar – not only the Oktoberfest is a tradition, each year traditional fairs are held throughout Germany. But what looks like tradition requires much innovation. Between family legacy and modernity: carnies tell of the love of their lives, the traditional fair.

Project archive

Hannah Arendt
Thinking is Dangerous

The dossier about Hannah Arendt’s conception of thinking explores this aspect of her work and life through art, dialogue, performance, play, music, and silence.

Shaping the Past / Gestaltung der Vergangenheit

Project
Shaping the past

How does the past take shape? What happens in the process of coming to terms with the past? What social repercussions are associated with the rooting of history in monuments and memorials? How can those narratives be shifted or upended through alternative, innovative approaches to memorialization?

Dossier
Mistakes

How does the new come into the world? We celebrate the error and its innovative power: the most beautiful small and big mistakes in art, language, technology and society.

Cooking workshops
Cooking with Annika!

Surely you’ve heard about German cuisine classics such as Brezeln, Sauerkraut, Kartoffelsalat and Streuselkuchen… But have you ever cooked German recipes? If not, this is your chance! This winter, we are offering a series of online cooking workshops where you can discover a few delicious, comforting and easy recipes to make. Find the recipes on our project page and download the accompanying cookbook!

Youth exchange project
« Our Digital Future, c'est ICI »

A new platform for young adults that offers a local and global exchange that addresses our digital future in a holistic and positive way, and focuses on identifying the principles, processes and decisions that will lead to the most inclusive digital societies.

Discussion series
Radical Diversity

How is radical diversity approached in Germany and North America? What can we learn from one another by taking a deeper look at the components of radical diversity and the different perspectives on them?

German-German history
The reunified Germany

One year after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the SED regime, the goal of West German postwar policy had been achieved: the reunification of the divided country. In 2020, we celebrated the 30th day of German reunification. Look back with us on an exciting chapter of German-German history.

German cities
On the road with Rahel

Fresh air, clean drinking water, a park nearby, nice neighbors. People who are there for each other and take each other into consideration. That is what the Germans want in their cities. What are you doing for it? And what are the problems? Rahel Klein visits cities in Germany for you - and shows how people are committed to making them more liveable.

Mountaning
Mont Réel

In summer 2017, a collectively-built mountain, Mont Réel, has emerged in Montréal, providing a gathering place for the surrounding communities and an in-situ laboratory to experiment with urban (bio)diversity.

The design of the exhibition "Queer as German Folk" developed by the Berlin based agency chezweitz

50 years Stonewall Riots
Queer as German Folk

The 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots gives occasion to celebrate, but also to continue the struggle for queer rights. The Goethe-Institut supports debate and remembrance with an international program.

Top

Society

Shoshana Liessmann Commemorating Immanuel Kant

Fun Facts How Well Do You Know Kant?

Cities in Germany City Contours

History German Traces in Canada

The German Language Column Word!

News from society

Gegenüber The Digital Magazine of the Goethe-Institut in North America

Frankfurt School Conceiving a New Society

Trust and Society The Invisible Institution

Open Memory Box A box, filled with memories

Pet Tigers Cats Are (As Of Yet) Always Good Content!

Stereotypes Germany For Experts

Children’s birthday parties in Germany Classics like the sack race and marble cake

Internalised Misogyny The Anti-Women Attitude inside Us

False Memory The Mandela Effect

The New World of Work

Universal Basic Income A Utopian Pipedream or a Necessary Paradigm Shift?

Economy A Wasteland Where People Feel Left Behind And Ignored

Sustainability

Greenwashing Green Lies: Trust Is Bad, Control Is better

Alternative Energies The Path Away from Oil

Urban Farming Agriculture 2.0

Sustainable Towns Digital villages, green towns

Air quality Working towards cleaner air in Germany’s cities

Green Touring Culture should not destroy the climate

Phasing out coal The energy revolution

Spaces

Protecting tenants Ideas from Berlin to rein in skyrocketing rents