UNTER UNS von Geistern, Dschinns und Monstern

Spirits and spectres like to undermine our cherished distinctions between life and death, presence and absence, past and present, the visible and the invisible. In philosophy though, there is only one spirit in the singular. In the plural, it would be considered an impertinence by the enlightened critical reason. As a result, the ghostlike is strictly excluded from the realm of what is deemed to be a legitimate object of reflection. The ghosts and spirits can’t be bothered. Unimpressed by such reasonable manoeuvring they keep haunting the present to remind the living that history is but a graveyard of unkept promises. There is no need for us to actually believe in the existence of spirits and ghosts to recognise the fact that every ghost story is also at the same time a fault signal. An indication that something is wrong. A call to do something about it, to put things right. What do we owe the dead? And what do we owe to those who will come after us? Could it teach us a lesson to tell the story of the German Federal Republic as a history of ghosts and spectres? Fabian Bernhardt is going to explore these issues in a conversation with the poet and writer Max Czollek.