Amor Mundi

The weekly newsletter of the Hannah Arendt Center

What is most difficult, writes Arendt, is to love the world as it is. Loving the world means neither uncritical acceptance nor contemptuous rejection, but the unwavering facing up to and comprehension of that which is. The opinions expressed in essays on our site are those of their authors.

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Amor Mundi (for love of the world) is an exploration of Arendtian topics delivered to your inbox every Sunday morning. This includes deep dives into the works of Hannah Arendt and the implications of her ideas on the world today. We feature varied, nuanced, and often opposing viewpoints in this non-partisan publication, and brave and provocative ideas that will help you (re)discover the joy of deep thinking and caring about the world.

When you subscribe to the newsletter, you'll also receive first-hand updates on what we’re doing at HAC (conferences, events, workshops, etc.), an Arendt Quote of the Week with in-depth analysis from Arendt scholars from around the world, and highlights of the work being done on campus by our Student Fellows. Be among the first to know about special offers from our partners and upcoming events!

We've been publishing weekly essays here on our website since 2010, and are now transitioning to the publication platform Medium. You can still read for free with links from our email each Sunday! But now you can highlight sections and comment, too!

Browse our Library of Amor Essays on Medium

A note to new Medium users: if you see an offer pop-up, just simply X out to close and continue reading. You can also Follow HAC on Medium and Subscribe to our publications, to receive additional notifications so you don't miss an essay.

The Radical Politics of Joy

"Is Joy really what Arendt wants us to be talking about, amidst the most racist, cruel, and criminal American administration since the Civil Rights era?" So asked one of my favorite former students, protesting the theme of this year's Hannah Arendt Center Conference: JOY: Loving the World in Dark Times.

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Civil Disobedience and the Spirit of American Democracy

Hannah Arendt wrote that, “Dissent implies consent, and is the hallmark of free government.” We are at a moment when dissent is required if we are to preserve our freedoms.

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Temptations of Tyranny

“If this isn’t tyranny, what is?” So asks Rod Dreher, one of President Trump’s most steadfast intellectual supporters, now increasingly alarmed by the President’s abuses of power.

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An Open Letter To My Friends Who Signed “Philosophy for Palestine”

These are dark times as multiple crises are erupting around the world while talk of a global conflagration is heard in many circles. These are also times that try human relationships, friendships, and alliances.

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Temptations of Tyranny

Rod Dreher’s conflicted support for President Trump illustrates a broader crisis among intellectual conservatives who fear the "soft totalitarianism" of liberal institutions yet embrace the hard authoritarianism of executive overreach. Drawing on Hannah Arendt’s political thought, the essay contends that true freedom is preserved not through charismatic leaders but through the multiplication and decentralization of citizen power. Revitalizing democracy, it argues, requires stubborn, local acts of collective governance rather than the dangerous temptation to concentrate authority in a single figure.

04-27-2025

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What We're Reading

What we are reading: The Shoah After Gaza

Pankaj Mishra, who spoke at the 2022 Arendt Center Conference Rage and Reason, reflects on how to think about the Shoah in the wake of the war in Gaza and Israel.

03-24-2024

Article

What we're listening to: Victims, Villians, and Settler Colonialism

Mike Cosper explores why the West requires Israel to play by different rules when it comes to defense and modern warfare.

03-24-2024

Article, Featured

"Mafioso Politics"

Roger Berkowitz
Hannah Arendt insists that we look reality in the face and seek to understand even what is most strange, difficult, and horrific. In a new essay, Timothy Snyder analyzes the context of how Trump is seeking to normalize criminality and violence. Snyder’s essay reminds us of Arendt’s worry in her final essay, that “Public opinion is dangerously inclined to condone not crime in the streets but all political transgressions short of murder.”

03-24-2024

Article, Featured

Chilling Pro-Palestinian Speech

Eyal Press, has written about my Bard College colleague and collaborator, Ken Stern, who has become a critic of the chilling effect of using the the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (I.H.R.A.) definition of antisemitism to shut down criticism of Israel on college campuses. Stern was one of the original creators of the definition, which was intended to help quantify incidences of antisemitism. But he has always opposed the use of the definition to shut down or regulate speech.

03-17-2024

Check out our new Hannah Arendt Personal Library Website

Over the last few months, we have been improving our online navigation for the Hannah Arendt Personal Library (HAPL). The Stevenson library’s new Archives & Special Collections site was launched last week and with it, a new page for the HAPL!

03-17-2024

Article, Featured

The End of The Golden Age

Franklin Foer has an essay arguing that “The Golden Age of American Jews is Ending.” What Foer calls the Golden Age was not only good for Jews; the emergence of Jewish-Americans helped define a new American liberalism, one the shed the assimilationist metaphor of the melting pot for the hyphenated-identity of the mosaic. But that Golden Age is ending. Antisemitism, once relegated to the fringes of American society, is back with a vengeance.

03-17-2024

Liberalism and Liberal-Democracy

N.S. Lyons interviews Polish philosopher and politician Ryszard Legutko about Polish politics and liberal democracy. Asked about the difference between liberalism and progressivism, Legutko answers, "As I see it, liberalism is not about freedom but about power and social engineering . . . liberals always assume a dominant position, claiming to know how to distribute freedom in the optimal proportions, therefore, deserving to be the irrevocable referees."

03-17-2024

Featured

The Supreme Court Between Power and Authority

Last week, the Court agreed without dissent to decide whether a former president of the United States is immune from criminal prosecution. But even amidst a unanimous judgment, the justices couldn't present themselves as a body above politics. For Hannah Arendt, the authority of the American Supreme Court was an essential aspect of the country’s foundation of freedom. Without it, all laws appear simply as means of power and politics.

03-10-2024

How Antisemitism Shape Shifts

Arendt argues that antisemitism gains its political power because it is able to be weaponized as an ideology that imagines Jews to be the root of all political and social evils; antisemitism, therefore, has little to do with actual Jews. Noah Feldman, without mentioning Arendt, makes a similar point in an essay asking how antisemitism is transforming today in contemporary politics. Understanding that antisemitism is a secular ideology is the first step to both confronting and resisting it.

03-10-2024