Summer, Sun, Eichstätt: The MWP Summer Celebration

The clink of glass­es and the cheer­ful buzz of voices fill the air from the other side of the cam­pus. The schol­arship hold­ers of the Max We­ber Pro­gram have made them­selves com­forta­ble at the bar tables in front of the KU Eichstätt-In­golstadt audi­tori­um and toast the day with spar­kling wine and cana­pés. "Why not bring the sum­mer festi­val to Eichstätt?" the stu­dents asked them­selves after the last sum­mer festi­val in Bam­berg. And so it was done!

"Today we are not only cele­brat­ing sum­mer, but also a spe­cial birth­day," Stef­fen Häu­ßler of the Ba­varian State Minis­try of Sci­ence and the Arts re­vealed dur­ing the sub­se­quent wel­com­ing ad­dress. "The Max We­ber Pro­gram has turned 18 this year."

The key­note speech by MWP men­tor and politi­cal scien­tist Pro­fessor Manfred Brocker of the Uni­versi­ty of Eichstätt-In­golstadt was also dedi­cated to an im­portant top­ic. In "Turn­ing Points: De­moc­racy and the Fu­ture" he vivid­ly illus­trated the chal­lenges of de­moc­racy in view of ap­proaching cli­mate crises and other dan­gers: "Not only man threatens na­ture, nature also threatens man. But if we are aware of these dan­gers, why do de­moc­racies do so little about it?" He blamed this on the fact that de­moc­racy is fixed on the pre­sent, which makes fu­tu­re-ori­ented poli­tics diffi­cult.

Pro­fessor Manfred Brocker dis­cuss­ed excit­ing possi­ble solu­tions such as coun­cils of the fu­ture, con­stitu­tional changes and in­creased sci­ence budg­ets to­gether with the schol­arship hold­ers. His ap­peal: "Only the path via sci­ence can lead us out of this situa­tion.”

At the sub­se­quent lunch in the uni­versi­ty cafe­teria, new ac­quaintances were made over spring dumplings, pea­nut curry and cof­fee. Scholarship hold­ers from Mu­nich, Bam­berg, Würzburg and Co. really got into the ex­change on the ter­race - and were able to con­tinue it dur­ing the after­noon pro­gramme. And the after­noon pro­gramme had a lot to offer: Vi­king chess dur­ing a picnic in the park, a CSD walk­ing demo in the city centre of Eichstätt or a pub quiz in the court­yard gar­den? The stu­dents and alum­ni had a num­ber of op­tions open to them. "It was a super di­verse pro­gramme and they really took good care of us," con­clud­ed schol­arship holder Ella from Mu­nich.

Text: Sophia Grabendorfer