Democracy and Vulnerability with Sharon Dodua Otoo

Join the Wende Museum, the Thomas Mann House, and dublab radio for the twelfth and final program in a series on the current state of democracies. How should a democracy deal with its own vulnerabilities? How do democracies need to evolve to deal successfully with increasing global levels of ecological crisis, geopolitical tensions, economic disparities, and culture wars? How much vulnerability can a democracy endure?

The Student Council consists of a team of highly engaged, talented, and diverse undergraduate and graduate students who invite prominent guest speakers to discuss topics relating to society, politics, culture, and art. In conversation with academics, journalists, politicians, and artists, the students will explore the various threats to democratic institutions and principles worldwide, as well as strategies to potentially overcome these threats.

The guest speaker for our December program is novelist and political activist Sharon Dodua Otoo. Otoo won the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize in 2016, a major international literary award in German speaking countries. Her debut novel “Adas Raum” was published by S. Fischer Verlag in 2021 and has been translated into several languages, including two English language versions “Ada’s Realm” (MacLehose Press, 2023) and “Ada’s Room” (Riverhead Books, 2023). In collaboration with the Ruhrfestspiele, one of the oldest, largest and most renowned theatre festivals in Europe, as well as the author Patricia Eckermann, she curates the Black German-language literature festival “Resonanzen.” Sharon Dodua Otoo is currently the Honorary Fellow at Villa Aurora in Los Angeles.