Family - (Not) an Obsolete Model? with Daniel Tyradellis

Article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights presents the family as the natural fundamental unit of society. However, it does not provide a precise definition of what this includes. This is reason enough to explore the concept of family and its alternatives. What does it mean to be related to one another?

This lecture is part of the “Beziehungsweise Familie” lecture series, which is the prelude of the Humboldt Forum’s annual program for 2025–26, under the same title.

Family is a broad and ambiguous term encompassing diverse forms of relationships. It represents origin and belonging but also involves obligations and conflicts. As a central component of social life, family conveys rules and norms, shaping desires, fears, and aspirations. Yet, there is no fixed definition of what constitutes a family. In different times and cultures, family can be understood and lived in vastly different ways. The interdisciplinary lecture series ‘Family in Relation’ focuses on the complex realities of the nuclear family model, which is particularly prevalent today in Western industrialized societies, and explores global perspectives on alternative models. Esteemed scholars from various disciplines and fields present current research that examines the potential of alternative family and kinship concepts, exploring their creative, ethical, and innovative dimensions.The interdisciplinary lecture series is the prelude to the programme year of the same name at the Humboldt Forum, set to launch in the fall of 2025.

The lecture series is being held as part of a collaboration between all institutions of the Humboldt Forum.

Head Curator for the Programme year 2025-26: Dr. Laura Goldenbaum

Daniel Tyradellis is a philosopher and curator. After studying philosophy and philosophy of science, he received his doctorate in 2003 at the chair of Friedrich Kittler with a thesis on the genesis of Husserl’s phenomenology in the context of the mathematical crisis of foundations. He was a long-standing member of the DFG Research Training Group “Coding Violence in Medial Change” at the the Humboldt-Universität and part of the research group “Violence of the Archives”.

Since 1997, in parallel to his university activities, Tyradellis has worked as a leading curator of mostly transdisciplinary exhibitions in numerous museums, including the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum Dresden, the Jewish Museum Berlin and the Deichtorhallen Hamburg. His research focuses on the close interlocking of theory and practice of curating as its own kind of cultural studies research. He understands the exhibitions he conceives as experiments in thinking in space.

Since October 2021, he has held the chair of the Humboldt Forum Endowed Professorship for the Theory and Practice of Interdisciplinary Curating, funded by the Bundesbeauftragte für Kultur und Medien.

Further dates:

11.12.2024 18:00-20:00: Digital kinship: Memes as a link in the culture of digitality for people of primary school age and above with Petra Anders

08.01.2024 18:00-20:00: Family, Care, State: Ideals of Belonging and Practices of Exclusion with Tatjana Thelen

- free admission

- Duration: 120 min

- German

- Ground Floor, Hall 3

- Part of: Lecture series “Family Matters”