In her text  “When Fox Becomes Polar Bear” (2012), artist Iman Issa engages an Egyptian textbook for children who are learning to read. On the page depicting the fourth letter of the alphabet, there is an illustration of a polar bear with a caption that reads: “Fox.” Commenting on the misprint, Issa sees it not only as symptomatic of the carelessness characteristic of a society whose social institutions are coming undone, but also as “a concrete manifestation of a cynicism that has come to permeate the way most forms in the country are understood and received [. . .] the product of a tacit understanding that the children learning the alphabet simply will not believe the images they see to begin with.

Our discussion will examine present-day Germany as a society undergoing a similar process, and attempt to describe the dissonance created when denial of facts becomes the condition for participation in the public sphere, expressing concern for civilian casualties is a  sign of support for terrorism and having a sense of empathy is read as a symptom of moral bankruptcy.

About renowned genocide scholar Dirk Moses 

About DAI theory tutor Ana Teixeira Pinto 

About WHY GERMANY 

COMING SOON: recording of this session which took place on the 9th of July, 2024 at 16:00 CET ~ please return to this page.