Uploaded January 2025 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
Three hundred years after the birth of Immanuel Kant, Daniel Kehlmann and Omri Boehm decided to think about how the philosopher from Königsberg can help us with the pressing questions of today. Over a series of conversations, they discussed everything from reason and illusion to racism, colonialism, and enlightenment; from space and time to freedom, art, justice, and the problem of evil; from knowledge and belief to self and God. Their discussions resulted in the book Der bestirnte Himmel über mir: Ein Gespräch über Kant (2024). For the conference, the authors meet again to discuss some of their answers and continue the conversation.
Omri Boehm is an associate professor and the chair of the Department of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York. He teaches and writes on early modern philosophy and philosophy of religion, with a specific focus on Descartes, Spinoza, and Kant. His books include The Binding of Isaac: A Religious Model of Disobedience (2007), Kant’s Critique of Spinoza (2014), and Haifa Re-public: A Democratic Future for Israel (2021). He was awarded the 2023 Leipzig Book Award for European Understanding for his most recent book, Radikaler Universalismus: Jenseits von Identität (“Radical Universalism: Beyond Identity”). His writing has appeared in Die Zeit, The New York Times, Washington Post, and Haaretz.
Daniel Kehlmann is a German-language novelist and playwright. Born in Munich in 1975, Kehlmann’s 2005 novel Die Vermessung der Welt (Measuring the World) has become one of the most successful German novels in the postwar period. His work has been translated into more than 40 languages. In 2020, Kehlmann’s novel Tyll was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize. He has been awarded the Candide Prize, the Per Olov Enquist Prize, the Thomas Mann Prize, and the Friedrich Hölderlin Prize. In 2013, Kehlmann collaborated with Jon-athan Franzen on his essay collection The Kraus Project, a translation of works by the Austrian satirist Karl Kraus. His plays The Mentor (2014) and Christmas Eve (2017) have been performed at the West End Theater in London and the Theater Royal in Bath. He has held the Eberhard Berent Chair at New York University and has been a fellow-in-residence at the New York Public Library Center for Writers and Scholars. He is a member of the German Academy for Language and Literature. His newest novel is Lichtspiel (2023).
Three hundred years after the birth of Immanuel Kant, Daniel Kehlmann and Omri Boehm decided to think about how the philosopher from Königsberg can help us with the pressing questions of today. Over a series of conversations, they discussed everything from reason and illusion to racism, colonialism, and enlightenment; from space and time to freedom, art, justice, and the problem of evil; from knowledge and belief to self and God. Their discussions resulted in the book Der bestirnte Himmel über mir: Ein Gespräch über Kant (2024). For the conference, the authors meet again to discuss some of their answers and continue the conversation.
Omri Boehm is an associate professor and the chair of the Department of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York. He teaches and writes on early modern philosophy and philosophy of religion, with a specific focus on Descartes, Spinoza, and Kant. His books include The Binding of Isaac: A Religious Model of Disobedience (2007), Kant’s Critique of Spinoza (2014), and Haifa Re-public: A Democratic Future for Israel (2021). He was awarded the 2023 Leipzig Book Award for European Understanding for his most recent book, Radikaler Universalismus: Jenseits von Identität (“Radical Universalism: Beyond Identity”). His writing has appeared in Die Zeit, The New York Times, Washington Post, and Haaretz.
Daniel Kehlmann is a German-language novelist and playwright. Born in Munich in 1975, Kehlmann’s 2005 novel Die Vermessung der Welt (Measuring the World) has become one of the most successful German novels in the postwar period. His work has been translated into more than 40 languages. In 2020, Kehlmann’s novel Tyll was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize. He has been awarded the Candide Prize, the Per Olov Enquist Prize, the Thomas Mann Prize, and the Friedrich Hölderlin Prize. In 2013, Kehlmann collaborated with Jon-athan Franzen on his essay collection The Kraus Project, a translation of works by the Austrian satirist Karl Kraus. His plays The Mentor (2014) and Christmas Eve (2017) have been performed at the West End Theater in London and the Theater Royal in Bath. He has held the Eberhard Berent Chair at New York University and has been a fellow-in-residence at the New York Public Library Center for Writers and Scholars. He is a member of the German Academy for Language and Literature. His newest novel is Lichtspiel (2023).
