Bonnie Honig is one of the world’s foremost democratic theorists. One of the major themes of her work is how contestation, rather than consensus, should be central in a democracy. She is a founding thinker of the agonistic democratic movement, driving its inspiration from the ancient Greek culture’s emphasis on the agon, for struggle. In recent work she explores how ‘public things’, like education, national parks and healthcare, are a precondition for democracy – but are often under pressure from privatization and neoliberalism. During this night, Honig enters into conversation with Arnon Grunberg. They will talk about public things, emergency and shock politics, her feminist interpretations of Hannah Arendt and democracy in disrepair. Bastiaan Rijpkema, who wrote an introduction to the first Dutch translation of one of Honig’s works: Publieke dingen, will introduce the evening.