We invite you to a debate on the topic of "Cancel Culture". The debate will be moderated by Jörg Scheller, professor of art history at the ZHdK, journalist and musician. His guests include Mohomodou Houssouba, author, literary scholar and member of the International Institute for African Studies, and Inés Mateos who is an expert on education and diversity and a member of Institute New Switzerland (INES).

"Cancel Culture" is what you might call a contaminated term. Originally, the phrase "cancel" was common in African-American communities. But "cancel culture" has long been perceived primarily as a fighting term of new and old right-wing radicals as well as some right-wing conservatives and libertarians. It thus testifies not least to an act of cultural appropriation and revaluation. In the media, whether in traditional newspapers or on Twitter, endless discussions are taking place about whether there really is a left-wing or "woke" cancel culture or whether it is just a matter of individual cases that reactionaries are stylising into an entire "culture" and instrumentalising in the culture war. This shows how strongly US-American discourses and social upheavals unfold their formative power in Europe with a slight time lag. Whether "political correctness", "identity politics", "woke", "campus wars" or "cancel culture" - what is hotly debated in Europe today has been in circulation in the USA for decades.

On this panel, we want to take a step back and try to look at the talk of "Cancel Culture" as a symptom of deeper problems and conflicts, to better understand the development of the use of the term and to discuss together where real dangers lie in terms of dwindling freedom of expression and (self-)censorship and where the invoked danger is only a phantasm.

Limited capacity seating (40 max.)