A Second Decline of the West? / Geht der Westen wieder unter?

In the organizer's words:

Walter Benjamin Lectures with Dipesh Chakrabarty

In 2026, the internationally renowned historian Dipesh Chakrabarty will hold the Benjamin Chair at the Centre for Social Critique (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin). A quarter of a century after the publication of his groundbreaking essay "Provincializing Europe", Chakrabarty raises the question of whether the multiple ecological catastrophes afflicting the planet necessitate a provincialization of humanity itself and examines from a decolonial perspective how a critical historiography can respond to the challenges of climate change. Monographs: Rethinking Working-Class History (Princeton, 1989), Europe as Province. Perspektiven postkolonialer Geschichtsschreibung (Campus, 2010), The Crises of Civilization: Exploring Global and Planetary Histories (Oxford, 2018), Das Klima der Geschichte im planetarischen Zeitalter (Suhrkamp, 2022) and Ein Planet, viele Welten. The Climate Parallax (Suhrkamp, 2025).

23 June 2026, Lecture 1: The Between and Betwixt Nature of Our Times

24 June 2026, Lecture 2: Globalization and the Politics of Provincializing Europe

25 June 2026, Lecture 3: Indigeneity as Planetarity: Provincializing America?

The lectures will be held in English with simultaneous translation into German. Free admission. Registration is not required. More information on the CTB event page: https://criticaltheoryinberlin.de/en/benjamin_lectures/a-second-decline-of-the-west/