What is meant by toleration?
18 May 2010
In the second Frankfurt Encounter, Feridun Zaimoglu and Rainer Forst will discuss ways of dealing with cultural and religious difference
Among the chief characteristics of modern societies is the increasing diversity of cultural and religious viewpoints. Yet at times it is as though we were back in the bleak times of religious conflicts – whether it be discussions over plans to build mosques, the Regensburg Address of the Pope, caricatures in Danish newspapers, or schoolteachers wearing headscarves.
Thus it seems logical that those who wish to defuse conflicts should repeatedly invoke the time-honoured concept of toleration. However, it is striking that in such cases the concept is often claimed by each of the parties to the dispute for him or herself. At this point at the latest the question of what exactly we mean by toleration becomes unavoidable: Recognition? Acquiescence? Or in the end just accommodation?
What is meant by toleration? This question will be the focus of the next 'Frankfurt Encounter' to which the Cluster of Excellence, in cooperation with the Frankfurter Kunstverein, invites the public on May 27. The participants will be the Turkish-German author Feridun Zaimoglu and Prof. Rainer Forst, Professor of Political Theory and Philosophy at the Goethe University Frankfurt. The discussion will be moderated by Peter Siller, Scientific Manager of the Cluster.
Feridun Zaimoglu has dealt with cultural and religious identities in many of his texts. He was born in Turkey, grew up in Germany, and was recently awarded the Jakob Wassermann Literature Prize for his role as a mediator in the dialogue between Germans and Turks. He shot to prominence in 1995 with his book Kanak Sprak. His Turkish-German family epic Leyla, which appeared around a decade later, was critically acclaimed both for its documentary character and for its literary excellence. Zaimoglu, who is also a holder of the jury prize of the Bachmann Competition and a recipient of the Carl Amery Award, is now regarded as one of the foremost German authors.
Rainer Forst, who like Feridun Zaimoglu was born in 1964, did his doctorate under the direction of Jürgen Habermas with a dissertation on theories of social and political justice. His postdoctoral dissertation addresses the topic Toleration in Conflict: History, Import, and Contemporary Significance of a Controversial Concept. In this study he traces a wide range of justifications of toleration through the centuries, sounds out their contemporary relevance, develops a conception of tolerance of his own, and establishes, among other things, that the evolution of thinking concerning tolerance is also a multifaceted history of ourselves. Forst, who is also Speaker of the Cluster of Excellence 'The Formation of Normative Orders', is regarded as one of the most influential political philosophers of the younger generation.
The second Frankfurt Encounter will take place on 27 May, 2010 in the Café of the Frankurter Kunstverein, Steinernes Haus am Römerberg, Markt 44. The event will commence at 7.30pm. Admission is free.
Further information on the Encounter can be found here
