Articles

Mrs. Stern Wanders The Prussian State Library

The Mrs. Stern in the play ’s title is actually a young Hannah Arendt, who at the time went by her married name, of Johanna Stern. Arendt speaks about her arrest in her famous interview with Günter Gaus. She tells Gaus that after the burning of the Reichstag she could no longer avoid politics.

To The Editor:

I attended the conference on ‘Racism and Anti-Semitism’ at the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College. Let me state at the outset that 1. I am not in any way affiliated or employed by the college. 2. I attend this conference annually as a community member who is interested in learning about complex political issues of timely relevance and 3. I am a Jew who has lived in Israel and who holds political views that are probably similar to those of your Opinion Editor, Batya Ungar-Sargon.

What We're Reading: Varian Fry

By Samantha Hill
Anya Schiffrin writes about how Varian Fry helped a number of German intellectuals, Jews, and leftists emigrate from Germany. Fry co-founded the Emergency Rescue Committee, which later became the International Rescue Committee. Among those Fry helped save include Hannah Arendt, Marc Chagall, and Victor Serge. 

Samantha Hill on Hannah Arendt's Relevance at this moment

The election of Donald Trump in 2016 brought new readers to Hannah Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism (published in 1951). Pete and I talk to Samantha Hill, assistant director of Bard College's Arendt Center for Politics and the Humanities, about the insights Arendt's thought offers us today.

Reimagining Human Health

The health concerns of the 21st century have shifted since the discovery of antibiotics in the 1920s. Over the last century, infectious diseases faded from view as the greatest threat to human health. During the same period, chronic inflammatory and noncommunicable diseases like asthma, Alzheimer’s, lupus, arthritis, Crohn’s, IBD, celiac disease, obesity, and others have increased exponentially...

The New Progressivism

By Roger Berkowitz
George Packer has a long and thoughtful essay about culture wars, meritocracy, and our children. The structure of the essay follows Packer and his wife as they navigate the New York City public and private schools. They pull their son out of an expensive private school to send him to a public school that is 38% white, 29% black, 24% Latino, and 7% Asian, closely representative of the city’s population. But the school is less academically rich than the private school...

Sunday Listening: An Interview
With Roger Berkowitz

In advance of the Hannah Arendt Center's 12th Annual Fall Conference, titled "Racism and Antisemitism," Hillary Harvey interviews HAC founder and academic director Roger Berkowitz.

Literary Prize for Peace

Please join us in congratulating Bard College Professor Nuruddin Farah who has won the 2019 Lee Hochul Literary prize for Peace, awarded in Seoul, South Korea.

What We're Reading:
Politics and Passions

By Samantha Hill
Hannah Arendt was notoriously wary of thinking about the passions in politics. From her critique of Rousseau’s empathy in On Revolution to her letter criticizing James Baldwin for putting forth a notion of political love, Arendt feared these emotions could not create real solidarity. She believed that such feelings were anti-democratic because they turned our capacity to love the many away from the public realm of political action...