What are the noticeable changes at the Wissenschaftskolleg?, I asked myself when I last came to Grunewald in late January of this year to attend the customary Berliner Abend. 

There are, of course, new faces: not only the Fellows (as to be expected), but also at the reception, in the kitchen, and among the staff more generally. Such changes are normal, but at the same time surprising for someone who got used to one version of the house as a Fellow. In this context it is good to know that there is an anchor of continuity in the Fellows’ Club ‒ I think of Nina Kitsos to whom we wish a quick recovery. The material environment naturally goes through a (slower) transformation: the couches in the clubrooms definitely look new. What is harder to observe are the intellectual changes in the Kolleg: For instance, how the Institute perceives its connections to the changing world beyond Grunewald and its role in it. We hope that the newsletter of the Fellows’ Club can provide some answers while at the same time offering a reflection on this issue’s topic of academic freedom.

War in Ukraine and in the Middle East, political legitimation of the far right in Europe, to name just a few recent phenomena, have been generating growing polarisation in society, and academia has not been spared. How can Wiko host Fellows from conflict zones and, at the same time, promise a peaceful and fruitful time to scholars? In the spring of 2024 Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger offered a multi-layered reflection on “science and research in times of crisis” in the Süddeutsche Zeitung’s podcast. Its name is, I think, very fitting to describe the Rector’s intellectual style: In aller Ruhe. We have transcribed the podcast and translated it into English for this issue. I was particularly sensitive to the premise voiced in the interview that conflicts can and must be approached discursively. But as you will learn from listening to the podcast, it takes a lot of work and skill to navigate in a rather heated discursive environment.

One of the strategic responses of the Wissenschaftskolleg to what sometimes feels as a never-ending crisis with a changing topography was to acknowledge the need to support free scientific exchange. The Elkana Fellowship was recently created by the Wissenschaftskolleg to that end. It currently endorsed the digital relaunch of the Belarusian Historical Review and the Ankara-based School of Human Rights, whose mission is ‒ as Elçin Aktoprak (Fellow 2022/2023) reports in this issue ‒ to build an alternative academic sphere in Turkey. Your donation for the program is very welcome!

During my stay in late January, talks and presentations at Wallotstraße 19 were linked to the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Fittingly, the newsletter engages with the topic of the Holocaust in an interview with artist-researcher and Elkana Fellow 2024/2025 Natalia Romik whose multimedia exhibition “Hideouts. Architecture of Survival” was hosted in 2024 at the Jewish Museum in Frankfurt. One of the artist’s tasks was to uncover something that was meant to be invisible – the hiding places of Polish Jews during the Shoah – and to find an adequate sculptural form for these ambivalent places and objects. 

The annual meeting of the Fellows’ Club in June will also focus on artistic research and is dedicated to photographic explorations between documentation and art. Three photographers in residence will present their work: Hannah Darabi (2024/2025), Arwed Messmer (2023/2024), and Frédéric Brenner (2016/2017). The panel discussion will be complemented by a visit to Berlinische Galerie and, of course, by the traditional BBQ… 

I would like to make the usual invitation to this summer gathering a little bit more personal. It is the 10th anniversary of the 2014/2015 cohort. Since myself and another vice-chair of the Board of the Fellows’ Club, Simone Reber, belong to this cohort, we would like to warmly invite our former Co-Fellows to come to Berlin on June 19 and 20. In the meantime, I will be focusing on the preparation of the upcoming Fellow Forum on Cooperation in a Transdisciplinary Context that I co-organise with Judith Bronstein and Danai Papageorgiou in March on the shores of the Halensee. 

Cordially yours,

Alexei Evstratov in the name of the Board of Directors of the Fellows’ Club