Dr. Liya Yu
Neuropolitics of Dehumanization: Navigating our brains and bodies in divided societies
Seminar, English/ Deutsch, 2 SWS, 2 ECTS
Wednesdays,, 10-14h, bi-weekly on the following dates: 15.10., 29.10., 12.11., 26.11., 10.12.2025, 14.1., 28.1., 11.2.2026, Hardenbergstraße 33, room 150

Registration on Moodle starts on 13.10.2025:https://moodle.udk-berlin.de/moodle/course/view.php?id=2866
Enrollment Key: brain

This course introduces students to neuropolitics, a new interdisciplinary field merging neuroscience and politics. We will study the pressing democratic challenges of our time, such as polarization, racism and dehumanization from the perspective of the human brain – both in terms of our cognitive abilities and vulnerabilities when it comes to democratic inclusion and cooperation with people with whom we disagree the most. The course explores neuropolitics especially from the question of artistic practice, everyday embodiment of abstract democratic values, and how to understand and overcome dehumanizing tendencies within all of us, from the brain cell up to behavior, movement and empathic liberation.

Fulfilment criteria for ungraded accreditation: Complete the readings and discuss. Write short prompts. Plan a small performance art project at the end of the semester.

Liya Yu is a neuropolitical philosopher, fiction writer, dancer and performance artist. She is the author of “Vulnerable Minds: The Neuropolitics of Divided Societies” (Columbia University Press, 2022) and “Hirn Statt Moral: Warum nur Neuropolitik den gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalt sichern kann“(auf Deutsch bei Ullstein, 2026). She was educated at the University of Cambridge, UK (BA) andColumbia University of New York (MPhil, PhD). She has researched and taught at the University of Virginia, National Taiwan University and LMU Munich. From 2021-2022 she was an artist-in-residence at Taipei’s Treasure Hill artist village, where she developed an anti-patriarchal dance performance project about the dehumanization of Asian women’s bodies. Her award-winning short stories and poems about bicultural identity struggles have been published in Germany, China and the US. As the child of Chinese immigrants to Bavaria in the 1980s, she has been outspoken in the context of anti-Asian racism in today’s Germany and has hence been described as one of the most important Asian German intellectual voices. In 2024, she was nominated for the Progressive Science Award by Brand New Bundestag in Berlin. Philosophie Magazin included her neuropolitical theory of dehumanization in their list of the most important ideas for 2025. She has recently delivered keynote talks on how to overcome polarization through a neurocognitive-and body based approach to Leuphana Uni Utopie Konferenz, Tage der Utopie Österreich, Bund Deutscher Baumeister, Bundesstiftung für Baukultur, ZEIT Akademie and the National Neuroscience Honor Society in the US. She is a frequent contributor to German media debates on immigration, racism, Asian feminism and democracy in East Asia.