The digital performative symposium UNEXPECTED LESSONS #3 took critical, decolonizing look at the ambivalent world of ideas of German Romantik, which as an artistic and political movement still has a great influence on notions of national/European identity and belonging.

Through talks, lectures, artistic interventions, film and music, the program addressed the question of how colonial and Romantic ideas are interrelated. We penetrated to the roots of today's Europe as a cultural space, look at enlightenment and anti-enlightenment, the history of Sinti and Roma, between romanization and othering, ask in which relationship colonialism and romanticism stand and talk about romantic love and power.

This keynote speech Lesson 1: Enlightment — German Orientalism and Counter.Enlightment. by Nikita Dhawan (scholar and political scientist, TU Dresden) sheds light on the complex connections between the Enlightenment and German Orientalism. She examines how the Enlightenment's seemingly universal ideals were often linked to colonialism and racism.