Freiwilligkeit und Ehrenamt. Zur Vor Geschichte des bürgerschaftlichen Engagements

About the lecture

Across projects, the DFG research group on Voluntariness deals with the central question: How did ideas and practices of voluntariness change in modernity and late modernity?

In his lecture on the concept of voluntarism and volunteering, Thomas Lindenberger will go back to the 19th century and set it in relation to a concept of voluntarism of the late 20th century that was more influenced by civil society. In doing so, he incorporates contemporary reflections on voluntarism as a form of governance as well as the applied engagement research that emerged from it.

Thomas Lindenberger is Professor at the TU Dresden and Director of the Hannah Arendt Institute for Research on Totalitarianism. From his diverse work, his groundbreaking work on the history of everyday life, the history of communism and post-communist transformation, the history of memory and experience, the history of public order and the police, as well as the concept of the "sense of self" are particularly noteworthy for our research on volunteering. Interested parties are cordially invited to attend the lecture evening in the prayer hall of the Small Synagogue Erfurt!