Borders are powerful sorting machines, and they continue to decide questions of belonging, mobility and immobility. Principal Investigator Steffen Mau, head of the Research Unit "Borders", investigates in this new book "Sortiermaschinen. Die Grenze im 21. Jahrhundert" (Stiftung Mercator, C.H.Beck Verlag 2021) how border systems classify our world and thereby contradict the globalisation thesis of unlimited mobility. Not only the dissolution of borders, but also the construction of digital smart borders, the expansion of border zones and the construction and militarisation of border fences go hand in hand with globalisation. Borders fulfil their separating function more effectively and more complexly than ever.

Steffen Mau, SCRIPTS, Professor of Macrosociology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Nora Bossong, writer, awarded with the Thomas Mann Prize 2020 and the Joseph Breitbach Prize 2020
Yara Hoffmann, independent journalist (moderation)

Free Admission. Current hygiene regulations are followed.
Please register at: https://www.scripts-berlin.eu/research/kel/PM-registration-form 
In cooperation with the international literature festival berlin and Verlag C.H. Beck,
Language: German
Livestream: YouTube

About the Series - Futuring the Liberal Script

“Futuring the Liberal Script” is a conversation series live from the silent green. Researchers of the Cluster of Excellence “Contestations of the Liberal Script – SCRIPTS” discuss and analyze current crisis of liberal societies and democracies and reflect on future political imaginaries from diverse perspectives. As a script “in trouble” the liberal script needs manifold analytical and discursive registers for keeping track of open antagonisms but also of its inherent contradictions and tensions. 

As such, “futuring” is not necessarily a variant of optimizing, but rather relates to developing a critical and creative stance in response to current erosions and contestations of liberal values. The liberal script has to compete increasingly with alternative scripts and agendas for organizing societies, be they run by authoritarian, populist, Islamic fundamentalist, terrorist or technocratic autocracies. Whether liberal democracies are confident, flexible and agile enough to respond to the challenges posed by contrary political systems and alternative ideas is a central matter of acute political and social concern. The SCRIPTS conversations assemble a variety of views, concerns and actors by putting research topics and timely diagnosis up to public and ongoing debate.