After the lecture had to be canceled in 2024 due to illness, we have included it again in the program of the lecture series for 2025.

Marx's writings resemble an iceberg. During his lifetime, only a small tip was visible. Not only is there a vast amount of preliminary work on his unfinished "Capital" – he only published the first volume in 1867. Marx also excerpted huge amounts of literature from various disciplines over decades. These excerpts are being published for the first time in the fourth section of the Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences. Not only are they extraordinarily extensive (a total of 32 volumes, 13 of which are still pending), but they also contain a wealth of surprises that give reason to revise the image of Marx. Not least, they raise the question of how Marx actually arrived at his insights.

About the author: Dr . Timm Graßmann studied social sciences in Berlin and Warsaw and earned his doctorate at the University of Osnabrück with a thesis on Marx's crisis theory. Since 2014, he has been a research assistant at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities as an editor for the Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe (Marx-Engels Complete Edition). In October 2024, Schmetterling Verlag published his book Marx gegen Moskau. Zur Außenpolitik der Arbeiterklasse (Marx Against Moscow: On the Foreign Policy of the Working Class).

About the lecture series: This public lecture series has been taking place for over 20 years now, featuring scientists from the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities as well as from its seven sister academies. The lectures are aimed at a broad audience and provide insights into the research work being carried out. Afterwards, there is an opportunity to talk to the scientists over pretzels and wine in the Academy's courtyard garden.

The series is held in cooperation with vhs Heidelberg.