Horror Vacui, Or How States Use Culture to Stabilize Authoritarian Rule
WZB Talk by Anna Skarpelis - Online Event
Racial purity and supremacy were core to Nazi Germany’s claims to European dominion. At the same time, their very own “racial scientific” research showed that most Germans were “mixed-race” and not majority “Nordic.” Given this dissonance between phenotypical aspirations to a Nordic ideal and the reality of a largely non-blond German population, how did the National Socialist regime maintain legitimacy to rule? Drawing on historical and archival sources, I show how culture and art were used to stabilize rule in authoritarian and colonial contexts. The talk closes with some challenges this historical case study poses for contemporary research on authoritarian rule and the governance of human difference.
Anna Skarpelis is Research Fellow of the Research Unit Migration, Integration, Transnationalization.
Please note that this event takes place in English only with no translation.
The event is part of the WZB Talks series.
-----
The WZB will record this event, which is carried out via Zoom. The audio recording will be separated from the video recording and published on the WZB website (https://www.wzb.eu/de/node/66702) in order to present the talk to an interested public. The video recordings are deleted after editing and are not passed on to third parties. If you participate in the event with spoken contributions, this information as well as the name you provided will be published. If you want to participate in the discussion without your contributions being published, you can use the chat function to submit questions.
Please note that information on the Internet is accessible worldwide, can be found with search engines and linked to other information. Recordings that can be accessed via the Internet can be copied and distributed at any time.
We require your consent to record the event and to publish the audio recording. You will be asked by Zoom whether you agree to the recording. Your consent is voluntary, without consent, however, you can not participate in this event. You can revoke your consent at any time with effect for the future, e.g. at wzb [at] wzb.eu. In this case, the recordings will be deleted from the pages operated by us or edited in a form that ensures that your contributions are removed. The data handling up to that point remains lawful. Further information on data security, your rights and the contact details of our Data Protection Commissioner can be found here.