Hurra*, wir lesen noch …
The Female MQ Empowerment Bookclub with Lilian Klebow and Teresa Vogl

Wed 12.06.2024, 19h l Free entry
Due to the cool and damp weather, the event will be moved to the Baroque Suite A

Analogue reading and the mutual recommendation of valuable literature with encouraging messages and content that challenges the patriarchal structure with intellect, a wealth of ideas, scientific knowledge, but also with a lot of humour, is seen as a gentle feminist revolution.

Book clubs among women have a long history, for example in Austria and Germany in the 19th century, often originating from the Social Democrats, in order to provide access to books for women who were consistently disadvantaged in terms of education. These efforts culminated in women being forced to vote in 1919, but women also read and discussed together and networked in bourgeois women's clubs. Ultimately, all the salons in Vienna and Berlin - from Rahel Varnhagen to Berta Zuckerkandl - served to exchange knowledge between women (and men, but for women this was the only place to do so) and to exchange books.

To kick things off and as a deliberate female counterpoint to the predominantly male-oriented UEFA EURO football championship (14 June to 14 July 2024), the MQ is using this format to send a conscious signal for gender equality ...

Hurra*, wir lesen noch... is intended to encourage women (and men) to proactively defend themselves daily with an alert mind against the dangerous forced irrigation and abundance of useless content of all kinds of discrimination and marginalisation, and thus to be better able to distinguish fake from fact.

The first event of this kind with both presenters (Lilian Klebow and Teresa Vogl), who will continue to alternate as moderators, will take place on 12 June at 7 pm on the MQ Summer Stage. There will be book presentations, readings, discussions about content and much more in this motivating and inviting format, with the guests taking turns on the podium.

* According to Duden, Hurra is an exclamation of enthusiasm, of applause. A battle cry with a positive connotation, intended to encourage and at the same time implying a spirit of optimism. The play on words with the bestseller "Hurray, we're still alive" by Mario Simmel is a further component and creates a reference to reading and additional impact. Mario Simmel was an Austrian writer who reached an audience of millions with his novels, which often dealt with contemporary historical themes. He would have been 100 years old this year.

(from left) Lilian Klebow and Teresa Vogl, © Katharina Schiffl