Why is it that of all people, the renowned author and constitutional judge Juli Zeh has taken an interest in a tabloid-ready loverboy story? And what makes this case interesting far beyond its scandalous core? And why are we so interested in this book? Because the public—like the author Juli Zeh—is interested in the story behind the story, and in the question of whether court proceedings and/or their media coverage are capable of bringing one of the highest goods, the truth, to light. After all, we are all attached to the idea that there must be such a thing as truth to serve as a compass in life.
The event will be held in German.
The case constructed by Juli Zeh is as straightforward as it is simple: a married, successful businesswoman is apprehended with a pistol and suspected of having killed her employee—twenty-five years her junior—and alleged lover: suspected murder. The case ends up before the Hamburg Regional Court and develops into a media event that divides the public: Aha, once in positions of power, do women act just as toxically as men?
The legal proceedings and the accompanying media narrative, which are supposed to serve the search for truth, threaten to turn into their opposite—distorting and obscuring the truth.
But what happens to our ethical compass if the truth does not come to light? What happens when the media, as the fourth estate, undermine the judiciary, conduct their own search for truth, but in reality merely manipulate the very truth they hope to uncover? In this way, the courtroom drama becomes a mirror of a society that, in times of fake news, is struggling with its relationship to truth—with that non-negotiable core.
PERFORMERS
Juli Zeh reading
