Publications

Edited by Lukas Meyer, Barbara Reiter, Helmut Konrad (2022)

In this, the ninth volume in the series "Who owns [...]?", Denkzeitraum examines numerous questions surrounding the topic of "Who and what does Europe belong to?" Based on this key question, readers are invited to engage with three major themes: Europe's identity, restitution and structural injustice, and crises and death.

In the Denkzeitraum events documented in this volume, which took place between 2019 and 2022, we discussed, among other things, the emergence, legitimacy and values of Europe, European colonial history and how to deal with this and other forms of injustice. The challenging events that the world (and Europe) has experienced during this period - from the coronavirus crisis to the war in Ukraine - and which have repeatedly shifted and expanded the focus of the project, are also discussed in the last of the three thematic blocks.

The participants in the Denkzeitraum will engage with these difficult questions. However, readers will not find definitive answers; instead, they will be offered numerous perspectives from a wide range of people who are doing research in this area or have taken part in events.

Edited by Lukas Meyer, Barbara Reiter, Helmut Konrad (2020)

With this question, Denkzeitraum continues its journey in 2018 and once again crosses borders. After "Who owns the future?", "Who owns work?" and "Who owns public space?", the Denkzeitraum is now shedding light on home. In philosophical cafés, symposia, writing workshops and joint discourse, new experiences were gathered, experiences were refl ected and borders were overcome.

These are collective images of flight, war and marginalisation that shake us - signs of humanity, help and shared trust that give us new courage. Philosophising together makes it possible to build bridges instead of borders, and this volume brings together transcripts, documentation and texts on the events, as well as essays written specifically on this topic - jointly developed approaches and perspectives in text and images.

"The common good is created at the edges of society, where loose ends are waiting to be tied together." Barbara Reiter

Edited by Lukas Meyer, Barbara Reiter, Klara Strausz, Helmut Konrad (2018)

After the questions of who owns happiness or the climate, the question of the determining forces in real or virtual public space is an obvious one. What is public space anyway? Who is authorised to shape it, who defines it? Can it be changed, can there be a democratic decision-making process?

As part of the Denkzeiträume programme, we not only looked at existing monuments, but also examined the associated questions from different angles: Who or what should be publicly memorialised? Can we speak of a disintegration of the public sphere? Who can influence public space? Can schools also be understood as public spaces? The fact that we were able to win Peter Singer as a speaker was a real highlight. As part of the participatory competition DenkMal! Who or what deserves a monument in Graz? numerous citizens contributed their ideas for as yet non-existent monuments for the public space of the city of Graz.

Edited by Lukas Meyer, Barbara Reiter (2017)

In addition to the expert talks, this volume also documents the KliMacht|CliMatters exhibition and contains the cookbook "Rezepte aus der Einkehr. This is what home tastes like", which was created as part of the storytelling cafés at the "Einkehr" refugee centre in Mariatrost. For the sixth year in a row, the Denkzeitraum in Graz is exploring questions of broad public interest. Following on from our explorations of happiness, the future, time, thought and work, from April to December 2016 we asked ourselves the question: Who owns the climate? We explored the following questions: How do we construct climate and the environment through language? Who is responsible for climate change and its consequences? What solutions are conceivable to avoid the threat of climate change? Will our energy system change drastically? What does the climate have to do with me? What can I do to improve the climate? The question of the climate also concerns society as a living space: How do we treat each other as human beings, especially those who come to us and are dependent on our help? And how should we treat each other? The effects of climate change, such as droughts, storms and floods, are turning more and more people into refugees. What responsibility do we have towards refugees? And how can Europe work together to achieve fair burden-sharing on this issue?

Edited by Lukas Meyer, Barbara Reiter (2016)

In its fifth year, Denkzeitraum is expanding the question of happiness in 2015 and asking about the social and societal conditions of happiness: "Who owns work?" What role does work play in individual life plans today? What was it like in other times? Can work be fun and can we be happy without work? What role does age play in this? Would an unconditional basic income make us happier? We thus address the interdependencies between external conditions of happiness and individual opportunities for happiness in society. In this volume, dimensions of communal and political responsibility for the happiness of the individual are brought up for discussion.

Edited by Lukas Meyer, Barbara Reiter (2015)

The 2013/14 Denkzeitraum posed the question "Who owns happiness?". What makes people happy? Movement? Relationships? Play? Justice? And who does happiness belong to? We explored these and other questions with a survey in Graz in autumn 2013. We invited specialists to a discussion behind the Glockenspiel and asked random acquaintances at three potlucks in the city's public spaces in the summer of 2014 what happiness means to them. The results and answers are documented in this volume.

Edited by Lukas Meyer, Barbara Reiter (2014)

After "Who owns the time?" (2011) and "Who owns the future?" (2012), Denkzeitraum 2013 poses the question "Who owns thinking?". From April to October 2013, we explored questions about the relevance and scope of thinking together with people from Graz in a series of workshop discussions at the Glockenspielhaus. In an interdisciplinary exchange, we reflected on our own task: what can and should academic philosophy achieve in the public debate? How can reflection promote justice? Do we need the ivory tower of concentrated seclusion in order to achieve good (thinking) results? How important is the creativity of thought? How can thinking be measured and evaluated? This volume documents the contributions of our guests Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Krist Gruijthuijsen, Jürgen Wiebicke, Helmut Konrad, Wilfried Hinsch and Arthur Applbaum as well as the discussions with the audience in Graz.

Edited by Lukas Meyer, Barbara Reiter (2013)

Who will own the future? Who will be living here in a hundred years' time and what conditions will people find on Earth in a thousand years' time? Do we really have to think about people who haven't even been born yet when we make decisions today? And how can we think about the future when it isn't even here yet? From May to December 2012, Graz residents discussed these and many other contemporary issues at the Glockenspielhaus and the Literaturhaus. This volume documents the two discussion rounds, thinking spaces and the literature competition in text and images.

Edited by Lukas Meyer, Barbara Reiter, Alexa Zellentin (2012)

From May to September 2011, Graz was dominated by time - even more so than usual with its landmark, the clock tower. Does time pass faster when we get older? Is time really money? How do we deal with our responsibility towards the past? Are we responsible for the future? Can we hear time? What do we learn by listening to older generations? Do we forget time when we play? These and many other questions about time were explored by the Denkzeiträume on the Schlossberg in Graz. The result was a series of events that offered various formats of informal learning on the topic of time responsibility with the participation of the public. The volume "Who owns time? A summer in Graz", edited by Lukas Meyer, Barbara Reiter and Alexa Zellentin, is published by Universitätsverlag and documents in text and pictures the individual panel discussions and thinking spaces as well as the photographic ideas competition "Make a picture of time!": a book for reading and pictures and perhaps for some an invitation to imitate.