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The Two Saviors Who Would Destroy Us
In Fintan O'Toole's reflection on Biden's savior complex, he observes that those who define themselves by their opposites risk becoming like them. Biden's struggle against Trump's shadow, vividly seen in his disintegration during the CNN debate, illustrates this dangerous parallelism, where Biden's attempts at differentiation are overshadowed by Trump's presence, eroding his own persona and political effectiveness.07-05-2024
Articles
How Education Divides Us
By Roger BerkowitzOur societies are coming apart. This is true not only in the United States, but also in Europe and around the world. As technological bubbles enable alternate factual universes, we witness a growing divide amongst people that threatens to undo the common sense that unites us as citizens.
01-22-2020
What We're Reading: Incoherence
From Samantha HillHannah Arendt Center NEH Fellow Thomas Chatterton Williams writes about the need to embrace incoherence against this political moment, which has fallen toward ideological imperatives. Citing Arendt, Williams argues:
01-22-2020
The Need for Analogy
Peter E. Gordon writes a defense of historical analogy in the New York Review of Books. Gordon situates his considered argument against the backdrop of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum issuing a blanket statement, refusing historical comparison to the Holocaust in response to Alexandra Ocasio Cortez calling the detention camps on the U.S. boarder “concentration camps” last year. — Samantha Hill01-15-2020
“It Doesn’t Really Matter”
Ethan Porter and Thomas J. Wood argue that empirical studies show that when Americans of both parties are confronted with corrections to factual misstatements, they overwhelmingly change their opinion of the facts. — Roger Berkowitz01-15-2020
What We're Reading: Antisemitism & Free Speech
By Samantha HillKen Stern, who runs the Center for the Study of Hate at Bard College, writes about Donald Trump’s Executive Order that was signed this week. Stern was responsible for drafting the working definition of antisemitism used in Trump’s order when he worked for the American Jewish Committee, and is now worried that it is being used to silence free speech on college campuses.
12-18-2019
A Letter from Founder and Academic Director Roger Berkowitz
The work we do at the Hannah Arendt Center depends on the support of our members. From our diverse group of student and senior fellows to our annual conference, Amor Mundi to the HA Journal, your contributions are vital and deeply appreciated. During this holiday season, we hope you will consider helping us continue to foster bold and provocative events, publications, and academics in the spirit of Hannah Arendt.12-13-2019
On Walter Benjamin’s Legacy: A Correspondence Between Hannah Arendt and Theodor Adorno
THE 1967 CORRESPONDENCE between Hannah Arendt and Theodor W. Adorno followed Walter Benjamin’s death by nearly 30 years. The acrimony that grew between Arendt and Adorno during the intervening decades is present in these letters. Who had the right, ethically and intellectually, to edit and publish Benjamin’s work? — Susan H. Gillespie and Samantha Rose Hill write in the L.A. Review of Books.12-10-2019
What We're Reading: Arendt on the Political
By Samantha HillIn an Interview with the Cambridge blog fifteen eightyfour, David Arndt discusses his new book Arendt on the Political. The book addresses the questions of politics and the political sphere while thinking about the underlying problems of democratic politics.
12-10-2019
Walter Benjamin's Last Work
WHEN HANNAH ARENDT escaped the Gurs internment camp in the middle of June 1940, she did not go to Marseilles to find her husband Heinrich Blücher — she went to Lourdes to find Walter Benjamin. — Samantha Hill writes this week for the L.A. Review of Books12-09-2019