Articles

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 Hill

“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 Berkowitz

What We're Reading: Antisemitism & Free Speech 

By Samantha Hill
Ken 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.

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.

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.

What We're Reading: Arendt on the Political 

By Samantha Hill
In 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. 

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 Books

Roger Berkowitz on the Hannah Arendt Center

Roger Berkowitz, academic director and founder of the Hannah Arendt Center discusses the Center's origins and continuing mission in Rural Intelligence.

Giving Tuesday

By Samantha Hill
Hannah Arendt Center fellow Amy Schiller writes about what happens when only rich people give to charity for the Washington Post. On “Giving Tuesday”, which follows “Cyber Monday” each year after Thanksgiving, Schiller highlights how up to thirty percent of all charitable gifts in the United States are made in December. And while charity has always been a part of the American mythos, who gives has changed over time, and giving on average has declined.