On the 25 March 2026 the RDS, in collaboration with the department of Social Sciences, were pleased to present a special guest lecture by Prof. Dr. Adrian Daub from Stanford Univerity (USA). Prof. Daub presented his new book “What Tech calls Governing”, in which he explores the influence that the silicon valley Tech Bros exert on politics and governments. His insights are startling, concerning, and at times comical, and throw up many questions about how we as citizens in liberal democarcies should be responding. 

Prof. Daub engaged in a lively discussion, chaired by Prof. Dr. Oliver Natchway, and was kind enough to continue the discussions at the apéro after the event.

The German version of the Book “Was das Valley Herrschen Nennt” is available from Suhrkamp . The English version can be pre-ordered from Stanford University Press.

If you have ideas for other potential guest lecturers, please get in touch with the RDS, and we can see if we can help set this up.

About the Lecturer

Prof. Dr. Adrian Daub is the J.E. Wallace Sterling Professor in the Humanities in the Department of German Studies at Stanford University (USA). He is also currently the Barbara D. Finberg Director of the Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research. His research interests include German literary, cultural and intellectual history after 1790; feminism, gender and sexuality studies; history of feminist thought; German Idealism and Romanticism; philosophy, gender and sexuality; post-WWII German literature and film; music and German Modernism; fin-de-siècle opera; Frankfurt School Marxism; photography and literature; visual and sound culture; structures of affect and memorial culture.

Born in Cologne, Prof. Daub studied Comparative Literature at Swathmore College, before completing an M.A. and his Ph.D in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory at the University of Pennsylvania. He has been at Stanford University since 2013, while he has also been a guest professor at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich, the University of Bern, and the University of Mannheim.

Prof. Daub has published several books, including What the Ballad Knows: Memory Culture and the German Nation (Oxford University Press, 2022), Tristan’s Shadow – Sexuality and the Total Work of Art after Wagner. (University of Chicago Press, 2013), and the forthcoming Who Killed #MeToo? How Media Made and Unmade a Movement with Moira Weigel and Alison Dahl Crossley.