Gestalten. Vernetzen. Verbinden. Goethe-Medaille Preisträger*innen im Gespräch in Berlin

In the organizer's words:

The winners of the Goethe Medal 2025 will be in conversation in Berlin: German scholar and language mediator Li Yuan from China, Belgian author and historian David Van Reybrouck and his wife, social scientist Ayşe Buğra, on behalf of the imprisoned Turkish cultural patron Osman Kavala. Under the title "Shaping. Network. Connect.", Goethe Medal winners talk about their commitment to culture, education and civil society.

Since 1955, the Goethe-Institut has awarded the Goethe Medal once a year as the official decoration of the Federal Republic of Germany. The Goethe Medal honors individuals who have rendered outstanding services to the teaching of the German language and international cultural exchange. The Goethe Medal is the most important prize in the Federal Republic of Germany's foreign cultural and educational policy.

The discussion will be moderated by the author and journalist Shelly Kupferberg.

The discussion will be held in German and English with simultaneous translation. Afterwards, all attendees are invited to a reception. More information about the Goethe Medal and this year's award winners can be found here.

Participants

David Van Reybrouck is an author, historian and archaeologist. As one of Belgium's and Europe's leading intellectuals, he is committed to promoting democratic resilience and a comprehensive understanding of history. Van Reybrouck studied philosophy and archaeology at the Catholic University of Leuven and Cambridge and holds a PhD from Leiden University.

In 2010, he published his multi-award-winning book Congo. A History. For Revolusi. Indonesia and the Making of the Modern World (2022), Van Reybrouck was awarded the Geschwister Scholl Prize in 2023, among others. Using archive material, numerous interviews with contemporary witnesses and personal observations, he conveys knowledge about local histories and perspectives that otherwise receive little attention in Europe and reveals the violent history of European colonialism, some of which is still often suppressed.

In 2011, Van Reybrouck founded the G1000 initiative, a platform for democratic innovation, civic participation and involvement. His book Gegen Wahlen. Why voting is not democratic (2016), in which he explains how deliberative democracy can be further developed, attracted a great deal of attention worldwide. His proposal to convene citizens' assemblies elected by lot was met with great interest and triggered a wave of citizens' assemblies in several European countries. In Germany, the concept of citizens' assemblies was tested for the first time at federal level in 2024 with the "Citizens' Council on Nutrition". Van Reybrouck was involved in organizing the world's first permanent citizens' assemblies in the German-speaking Community of Belgium, in Paris and in Brussels.

David Van Reybrouck was a DAAD scholarship holder in Berlin in 2016-2017. He is Honorary President of PEN Vlaanderen and in this role is particularly committed to supporting authors who are persecuted in their home countries. In 2025, Van Reybrouck was named Thinker of the Netherlands - the philosopher laureate of the Netherlands and Flanders. This honorary title is awarded every two years to personalities who enrich the social debate in the Netherlands and Flanders through essays, opinion pieces, lectures or interviews.

Osman Kavala is a cultural promoter who is committed to intercultural dialog, artistic cooperation and regional peacebuilding in Turkey. By founding and promoting initiatives in Turkey and Europe, he has played a decisive role in shaping the cultural landscape.

As the founder of Anadolu Kültür, a non-governmental organization that works at the intersection of art and culture, civil society and human rights advocacy, he has established platforms such as Depo in Istanbul and the Diyarbakır Arts Center for cultural practitioners that enable cross-border collaboration and provide independent spaces for artistic work. His work also focuses on fostering networks between cultural venues in Anatolia and cultural institutions in Europe through programs such as TANDEM, which supports long-term artistic partnerships, and Spaces of Culture, an arts funding program led by the Goethe-Institut. Osman Kavala is a co-founder of the Association for the Protection of Cultural Heritage, which works to protect endangered historical sites and artifacts. Through initiatives such as the Armenian-Turkish Cinema Platform and the Armenian-Turkish Youth Symphony Orchestra, he has been instrumental in promoting cross-border cultural exchange.

His lifelong commitment to civil society is based on the conviction that art and culture are crucial for dialog, mutual understanding and the creation of a more just and inclusive society.

Ayşe Buğra is a social scientist, author and prominent academic figure from Turkey. She holds a PhD in Economics from McGill University and is currently Professor Emeritus of Political Economy at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul. During her time at Boğaziçi University, she taught and published in the fields of development studies, social policy, state-economy relations and the socio-economic history of modern Turkey. From 2004 to 2017, she was the founding director of the Social Policy Forum, an interdisciplinary research center at Boğaziçi University.

Her most recent book, Social Policy in Capitalist History: Poverty, Work and Society , was published in 2024. Her publications on politics and business include State and Business in Modern Turkey: A Comparative Study and New Capitalism in Turkey: The Relationship between Politics, Religion and Business. Buğra has received numerous awards for her academic achievements, including the Celso Furtado Prize for Social Sciences from the TWAS (World Academy of Sciences), the Duygu Asena Women's Rights Prize from the Turkish PEN Center, the national Sedat Simavi Prize for her work on the state and economy in Turkey and the Abdullah Kuran Honorary Prize from Boğaziçi University. She is a member of the Turkish Academy of Sciences and is on the advisory board of the International Karl Polanyi Institute at Concordia University in Montreal.

Li Yuan is a Germanist and expert in German as a foreign language. She heads the Faculty of Asian and European Languages, the Institute for German Studies and is Director of the Center for Global Competence at Zhejiang University in the People's Republic of China.

Li Yuan received her doctorate from the Technical University of Berlin and completed her post-doctoral studies there with a Humboldt Fellowship. She is doing groundbreaking work in the field of foreign language acquisition research by applying modern methods of empirical data analysis to continuously improve the didactics and methodology of German language teaching in China. In addition to the development of innovative formats, the promotion of young talent is at the center of her work in order to meet the enormous interest in German as a foreign language in China. She actively contributes to the continuous development of the subject through a variety of training seminars. A research colloquium initiated by her promotes exchange between German and Chinese academics. She also builds bridges between China and Germany and Austria for the DAAD and the Culture and Language Program of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research. Her research and teaching achievements have received numerous awards in China.

Shelly Kupferberg was born in Tel Aviv in 1974 and grew up in West Berlin. She studied journalism, theater and musicology in Berlin. In addition to numerous contributions for ARD, she has been presenting culture, literature and society magazines (DLF Kultur and radio3/rbb) for 30 years. In addition to her regular live radio broadcasts, she presents concerts, readings and conferences, as well as events for cultural institutions and festivals. In fall 2022, her literary debut Isidor was published by Diogenes and was on the SPIEGEL bestseller list, a theater adaptation of the book is currently in the works for the Burgtheater Vienna, premiere is in February 2026, directed by Philipp Stölzl.

Partners

The event is a joint project of the Goethe-Institut and Holtzbrinck Berlin. In cooperation with the Humboldt Forum Foundation in the Berlin Palace

- free of charge

- Registration required, see ticket button

- from 16 years

- Languages: German, English

- Room 3, ground floor