The return of the classes - Book presentation by Christian Baron

15 March 2020

- CANCELLED -

"Ein Mann seiner Klasse"
Book presentation by Christian Baron and
discussion with Dr. Sarah Lenz and Prof. Sighard Neckel

 Wednesday, 29th April 2020
7.00pm - 9.00pm
Humanities Centre for Advanced Studies "Futures of Sustainability"
Gorch-Fock-Wall 3, 20354 Hamburg, 1st floor, Room 1021

Registration is not required. Admission is free.

With his much discussed debut novel "Ein Mann seiner Klasse" (Claassen 2020), Christian Baron gives us a literary insight into what it means to grow up in poverty. From the perspective of a boy from the working class milieu who experiences paternal violence and his mother's despair in Kaiserslautern in the 1990s, Baron describes how the demarcation lines of social origin continue to mark boundaries between population groups and make it difficult to escape from the class milieu. "Ein Mann seiner Klasse" ("A man of his class") does not want to accuse or moralize and refrains from rash explanations to the readership. This is precisely the way in which Christian Baron vividly reveals today's modes of existence of marginalization.

Following the book presentation, Sarah Lenz and Sighard Neckel discuss with Christian Baron about what the return of the classes in literature and society can tell us about our present.

Christian Baron, born 1985 in Kaiserslautern, studied political science, sociology and German literature in Trier. After working as an editor for Die Rheinpfalz and Neues Deutschland, as well as publications for nachtkritik, Neue Zürcher Zeitung and Theater der Zeit, he has been writing for the weekly newspaper Der Freitag since 2018.