Navid Kermani in Conversation with Omri Boehm

Join us for a special evening featuring award‑winning German author and public intellectual Navid Kermani in conversation with Omri Boehm, Associate Professor and Chair of Philosophy at The New School.

These two prominent thinkers will discuss how current global conflict and political division are reshaping public life.
In recent years, Kermani has traveled through regions marked by upheaval to document how ordinary people endure, resist, and make meaning. Drawing on these journeys, he will read from his recent writings and reflect on the role of literature in times of crisis.
Kermani and Boehm will explore what it means to write, think, and speak publicly in an era defined by polarization, war, displacement, and deepening political fragmentation. Their conversation will touch on current developments in the Middle East and consider how these events reverberate in Germany, the United States, and beyond. Together, they will examine how the idea of the West is evolving, and whether literature, poetry, and religious thought can still offer common ground or moral orientation in fractured societies.

Navid Kermani is an independent German writer living in Cologne. He studied Middle Eastern Studies, Philosophy, and Theater in Cologne, Cairo, and Bonn, where he received the post-doctoral degree (“Habilitation”). For his literary and academic work, he was awarded numerous prizes, including the Hannah-Arendt-Prize, the Kleist-Prize, the Joseph-Breitbach-Preis, the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the Hölderlin-Prize and the Thomas Mann-Prize. His literary books are published by Carl Hanser Verlag (German) and Seagull Books (English), his academic and non-fictional works by C. H. Beck (German) and Polity Press (English).

Omri Boehm teaches and writes on early modern philosophy and philosophy of religion, with a specific focus on Descartes, Spinoza and Kant. His books include The Binding of Isaac: A Religious Model of Disobedience (Continuum, 2007), Kant’s Critique of Spinoza (Oxford University Press, 2014), Haifa Republic: A Democratic Future for Israel (Penguin Random House, 2021), and Radikaler Universalismus: Jenseits von Identität (Propyläen Verlag, 2023). In addition to his academic publications, he has also written for outlets including the LA Review of Books and the New York Times.

Presented within the context of the series 'Navid Kermani in Search of a Common Cause. Conversations Across the U.S.' With this extensive lecture series, Navid Kermani, the Goethe-Institut in North America and the Thomas Mann House in Los Angeles explore with our local partners how we can build and maintain solidarity among seemingly opposing identities, groups, and geopolitical alliances.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

Get App

Host or Publisher Goethe-Institut New York