How do we understand freedom not only as a right, but as a responsibility? What can the past teach us about resisting the erosion of democracy? Timothy Snyder, renowned for his work on Central Europe, Ukraine, the Soviet Union, and the Holocaust, remains one of today’s most incisive historians.
After the urgent clarity of On Tyranny (2017), he returned with On Freedom (2024), a book that reminds us that freedom is never simply the absence of constraint. It is relational: something to be practiced, shared, and defended together. CLIC and VUB are happy to invite you to this talk at Bozar!
- For more info and tickets: click here.
This event is a co-production by VUB & Bozar, with the valued support of the Hannah Arendt Institute. It is part of the VUB series Ties That Bind Us and the BOZAR series Writers & Thinkers.
About the speaker:
Timothy Snyder holds the inaugural Temerty Chair in Modern European History at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. He is also a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna and the head of the academic advisory council of Ukrainian History Global Initiative.
A scholar of the history of Central Europe, Ukraine, the Soviet Union, and the Holocaust, Snyder speaks five and reads ten European languages. He is the author or editor of twenty books published in forty languages. Snyder writes for the press on Ukraine, the U.S, authoritarianism, digital politics, health, and education. He has also appeared in documentaries, on television, and as an expert witness before several parliaments. He has received state orders and decorations as well as honorary doctorates.
His work has inspired demonstrations, sculpture, posters, punk rock, rap, film, theater, and an opera.
Ties that Bind Us: Transcultural Perspectives on Social Forms
A cross-disciplinary series organised by the Faculty of Languages and Humanities for VUB’s Public Programme.
The impact of global and geopolitical crises on European societies is widely felt. Common reactions to these are a growing societal divide and a rise in anti-democratic positions. The public imaginary is rife with a rhetoric dominated by the erection of walls, the demarcation of territory and claims of ownership. Crushed between polarised camps are vulnerable members of our societies – and thus humanity itself. Individuals with their complex identities are categorised into groups whose belonging, right to existence even, is called into question. Understanding the realities of diversity and change as given, the series “Ties that Bind Us” seeks to create a platform for a wide range of perspectives, life experiences and cultures of knowledge about forms of kinship, solidarity and conviviality – or, in other words, a counter-imaginary space to an increasingly widespread, yet dangerously reductive binary thinking.
Contact: ties@vub.be
Organisers at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities:
- Prof. dr. Benoît Henriet, History
- Prof. dr. Eva Ulrike Pirker, English & Comparative Literature
- Prof. dr. Katarzyna Ruchel-Stuckmans, Art History
Co-funded by the Faculty of Languages and Humanities research groups:
Centre for Literary and Intermedial Crossings (CLIC)
Social History of Capitalism (SHOC)
History of Art, Architecture & Visual Culture Research Group (VISU)