In mid-November, former French world-champion footballer Lilian Thuram presented his book “La pensée blanche” (“White thought”) in the University Library. In the book, the football legend vividly describes how European societies invented the categories Black and White, pointing to many examples, including some from his personal experience, that show just how these patterns of interpretation function. The book can be regarded as a deeply humanistic appeal to question established thought structures.
While visiting Frankfurt, Thuram also held a training course for teachers and met with schoolchildren from Frankfurt’s four schools offering the French baccalauréat alongside the German Abitur (Carl-Schurz-Schule, Liebigschule, Lycée Français Victor Hugo and Ziehenschule). The event was organized by Goethe University’s Institute of Romance Languages and Literatures, the Institut français Frankfurt/IFRA-SHS, Libingua (a network of grammar schools offering bilingual French-German education in Germany), and VdF Hessen (Hesse association of teachers of French). It was supported by the Polytechnic Foundation of Frankfurt am Main; Frankfurt’s Mayor, Mike Josef, served as patron.
