Sofia Andruchowytsch will give a reading on 20 October at the second Annette von Droste-Hülshoff reading. ‘Andruchowytsch is one of the most important voices in contemporary Ukrainian literature. Her work demonstrates how important, but also how deceptive, memory can be – and how literature, in its own unique way, can illuminate the complex interconnections between history, identity and power’, says Slavic scholar Prof. Dr. Irina Wutsdorff from the Cluster of Excellence. Andruchowytsch will read from her epic novel Amadoka (2020). Read more

Historian Volker Leppin from Yale University spoke at the Cluster of Excellence about the illusion of the Bible’s unambiguity and the Reformation conflicts that arose from it in the 16th century. In his evening lecture ‘How clear is the Bible? Authority and argument in the Reformation dispute over truth’, he discussed the tension between the claim to infallible authority and the necessity of interpreting the Bible. In his lecture, Leppin analyses the Reformation as a ‘history of insisting on a claim’ which, in practice, could not be fully upheld from the outset. Watch the video (in German)

In his lecture at the Cluster of Excellence "Religion and Politics", Director of the Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Basel and Hans Blumenberg Professor for 2026 Alfred Bodenheimer discussed the justification of Contemporary Jewish actions through historical and, in part, biblical events or models of behaviour.
In his lecture entitled “ Forward into the Past: Contemporary Jewish Self-Definitions in the Grip of Historical Analogies,” he explored the question of how historical—and in parts biblical—events and models of behaviour shape Jewish self-identification and contemporary actions.  Read more