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Statelessness and Visions of Belonging

Miriam Rürup in Conversation with Dinah Riese

Citizenship is a guarantee for equal participation, social rights, and political representation – it is also a prerequisite for human rights protection. What does it mean to be stateless? How did statelessness in 20th century become a mass phenomenon, and what are its practical consequences until today? In this lecture historian Miriam Rürup will explore how the “right to have rights” – beyond national affiliation – has been reflected upon legally and socially. Citizenship law is a contentious political issue. We will explore the connection between citizenship and human rights from both historical and utopian perspectives. How can we expand fundamental rights and political solidarity?

Tue 29 Sep 2026, 7 pm

Where

online

Where, when, what?

The Digital Lecture Series Human Rights as the Last Utopia? Migration and Jewish History reflects on the history, present, and future of human rights as a political promise that must be continuously defended. Against the backdrop of Jewish migration history, five scholars, together with journalist Dinah Riese, examine the development of international refugee protection from diverse perspectives.

In the process, historical achievements become visible – achievements that are increasingly being questioned today. Which experiences from the past, and which legal or philosophical perspectives, can help overcome current limits in thinking about migration? And where can we find approaches in the here and now that point toward a more open future? 

Miriam Rürup

Miriam Rürup is the director of the Moses Mendelssohn Center for European-Jewish Studies in Potsdam. From 2012 to 2020, she headed the Institute for the History of German Jews in Hamburg. She was a researcher at German Historical Institute in Washington D.C., Göttingen University, Topography of Terror Documentation Center Berlin, Franz Rosenzweig Center in Jerusalem, and Leibniz Institute for Jewish History and Culture - Simon Dubnow in Leipzig. Her current research topics are the United Nations’ approach to statelessness as well as ideas of universal belonging in the aftermath of the two world wars and their repercussions on national politics in West Germany. Her dissertation Ehrensache. Jüdische Studentenverbindungen an deutschen Universitäten, 1886–1937 was published with Wallstein in 2008. Together with Dörte Bischof she edited Ausgeschlossen. Staatsbürgerschaft, Staatenlosigkeit und Exil (Edition text + kritik 2018)

Dinah Riese

Dinah Riese heads the domestic news desk at taz newspaper. Previously, she worked as a taz editor covering migration and integration. She has received multiple awards for her reporting on the so-called advertising ban on abortions, Paragraph 219a of the German Criminal Code. Her interview with survivors of the Halle attack was nominated for the Reporter:innenpreis (Reporters’ Prize). In March 2022, she co-authored the book Selbstbestimmt. Für reproduktive Rechte (Self-Determined: For Reproductive Rights) with Gesine Agena and Patricia Hecht, published by Klaus Wagenbach.

Dinah Riese, photo: Sonja Trabandt

A woman with short hair looks cheerfully into the camera. She is wearing earrings and a necklace.

Dinah Riese, photo: Sonja Trabandt
Purple-blue graphic with the inscription “Digital Lecture Series”

Digital Lecture Series
Human Rights as the Last Utopia? Migration and Jewish History

Digital Lecture Series Human Rights as the Last Utopia? Migration and Jewish History: The event series at a glance

Events

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The W. Michael Blumenthal Academy of the Jewish Museum Berlin: A Platform and Laboratory for Diverse Perspectives

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Updated on 14 April 2025

We would like to thank the Berthold Leibinger Stiftung for supporting the Digital Lecture Series. 

In media partnership with taz.

  • Logo with four dots surrounded by an interrupted square frame and the lettering: Berthold Leibinger Stiftung.
  • Logo: taz.die tageszeitung

Where, when, what?

  • Entry fee

    Free of charge

  • Language English

    Please note Registration link coming soon

Hashtag #JMBerlin

Source: https://www.jmberlin.de/en/digital-lecture-statelessness
Printed on: 05/13/2026