On 13 July, we enjoyed a thought-provoking evening with New Horizons Fellow Cynthia Miller-Idriss who discussed her insights from talking with 18–24 year-olds in the US, Canada, Kenya, and Jordan about what they experience online. 
Her research goes beyond the familiar debate about harmful algorithms, and uncovers a trifecta of outrage, retrenchment, and isolation that not only harms gender equality, but also eats away at the common ground democracies depend on. This results in the pressing question, of what this might mean for our shared democratic values.
The evening was a cooperation event between the College of Fellows, the German American Institute (d.a.i.), and the Institute for Research on Far Right Extremism (IRex). 

In June, renowned sociologist Eva Illouz visited the College of Fellows as a New Horizons Fellow. 
In her Public Lecture “Guilt, liberalism and the extreme right”, she addressed guilt by exploring the ways in which guilt has been made central to the liberal democratic cultures after World War II, and examined how the extreme right has interpreted and utilized the motive of guilt in its political agenda. 
Illouz claims that emotions play a decisive role in shaping the political culture of democracy. Her research explores how fear, resentment, anxiety, disgust, and love emerge from social conditions and influence democracy in widely discussed works, including The Emotional Life of Populism: How Fear, Disgust, Resentment, and Love Undermine Democracy and Explosive Emotions: How Modern Society Shapes What We Feel. 

Wendy He, an interdisciplinary scholar of international relations, has been awarded the Singapore Social Science Research Council Graduate Research Fellowship and is currently based at the University of Tübingen as a Global Encounters Fellow. Her research project examines how trust and leadership decision-making shape the course of climate negotiations, developing a psychological framework centered on the so-called "Confidence Trap" — the errors that arise from over- or undercalibrated confidence in diplomacy. Drawing on case studies of major climate conferences such as Copenhagen, Paris, and Glasgow, she analyzes how calibrated decision-making and trust dynamics can enable sustained international cooperation. The University of Tübingen is the first German university to be selected as a host institution for this prestigious fellowship, underlining its strong international standing.