WILLY BRANDT SPEECH LÜBECK

Eva Illouz will deliver this year’s Willy Brandt Speech in Lübeck. The sociologist and author is one of Israel’s best-known intellectual voices. Since Hamas’s attack on Israel, she has commented on the situation in Israel and Palestine in numerous interviews and articles, sharply criticising the Netanyahu government. At the same time, she defends Israel’s right to exist and denounces the growing anti-Semitism around the world. As a social scientist who primarily deals with emotions, she will address in her Lübeck speech a feeling that centrally structures the culture of remembrance: guilt. What role has guilt played in the constitution of democracies since the Second World War? And what are the limits of such politics?

Eva Illouz is Professor of Sociology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Director of Studies at the Centre européen de sociologie et de science politique in Paris. She has received numerous awards for her work, including the Frank Schirrmacher Prize and the Aby Warburg Prize in 2024. Her books have been translated into numerous languages.

Every year, the Willy Brandt House, in cooperation with the Hanseatic City of Lübeck, invites an outstanding personality who – following on from Willy Brandt’s legacy – analyses the most pressing political and social issues of our time and develops possible solutions.

Der Eintritt ist frei. Anmeldung erforderlich unter 0451/122 425 0, oder per Online-Formular.