In the spheres of culture, journalism, and politics, urgent desires for better understanding are often met with offers of dialogue. But as Western societies have become increasingly polarized, such reciprocal…

In the spheres of culture, journalism, and politics, urgent desires for better understanding are often met with offers of dialogue. But as Western societies have become increasingly polarized, such reciprocal engagement has lost some of its constructive potential. This is why TEXTE ZUR KUNST has dedicated its new issue, “Lecture,” to an investigation of the possibilities that the monological format opens up. The contributions to the issue demonstrate how the lecture’s inherently authoritarian interpellation can be repurposed for a critique of power and for subversive ends, highlighting, in particular, the lecture performance as a potent intervention into established hierarchies and regimes of knowledge. In a practical extension of these discussions, six artists and scholars reflect on the approaches, structures, rhetorics, and methodologies of their presentations in video lectures produced for the issue.