The Nexus Lecture takes place on Tuesday, 11 November 2025, at the Nieuwe Luxor Theater, Posthumalaan 1, 3072 AG Rotterdam. The theater is easily accessible by public transport.

Tickets have been sent by snail mail. Your entrance ticket indicates where you can take a seat in the theater. Please keep your ticket safe and bring it with you on November 11, as you will not be admitted without it.

For security reasons, we ask you to leave your coat at the cloakroom and leave bags larger than an A4 sheet at home or drop them off at the cloakroom as well: these will not be allowed in the theater hall. At the entrance, you will be asked to pass through a security gate, and your bag will be checked with an X-ray machine. Because this will take some time for over a thousand visitors, we kindly ask you to arrive between 2:00 and 3:15 PM. You are then very welcome to browse through the best Nexus publications at the Nexus stands and have a cup of coffee in the foyers. Unfortunately, anyone arriving after 3:20 PM will not be admitted. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.

Please note: If you have difficulty walking or use a wheelchair and have not yet informed us, please contact us by email at info@nexus-instituut.nl.

The Nexus Lecture is sold out! Tickets are no longer available. As a Nexus member, you will still have access to the livestream, which will be available on the website on November 11th.

Can we still imagine a world in which truth, justice, and humanity triumph over lies, hatred, and enmity? Eighty years ago people were confronted with this fundamental question, after the Second World War had left a trail of destruction and disillusionment. Dean Acheson, the 51st Secretary of State of the United States, believed the answer was ‘yes’. As a part of the Truman administration, he set the intention of not only imagining such a world, but of creating it from the ruins the preceding decades had left behind. Acheson was ‘Present at the Creation’, as the title of his memoirs state: present at the creation of a new, liberal world order wherein international organizations like NATO and the UN would guarantee a peaceful future.

Is there anything left of this optimism, and of the Amerian promise to the world? None other than Antony Blinken, until last January the 71st Secretary of State under President Biden, will reflect on this question during the Nexus Lecture 2025, ‘Present at the Re-Creation: Restoring the Promise of America in the World’, his first public lecture since Trump took office. Belligerent demagogues and authoritarian leaders threaten to gain control of the world once again, and the question posed eighty years ago is becoming increasingly pressing. What new world does Secetary Blinken imagine rising? And what role can America, which is now itself descending deeper and deeper into chaos, play in this world?