Amor Mundi

1619 to 2022

Roger Berkowitz
I’ve been teaching the 1619 Project in classes this week. I was excited to see that Mark Weitzmann has a long essay exploring Nikole Hannah Jones and the controversy around the 1619 Project as a rorschach test for the American discourse on race.

Looking Critically at DEI Curricula in K-12 Education

Roger Berkowitz
The Editors of the Journal of Free Black thought have published an abridged version of their report on “Six Unsettling Features of DEI in K-12.” It is hardly a demonization of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion syllabi. But the Journal’s report does raise serious questions about the potential harms associated with some but certainly not all DEI practices.

The End of Reality

Roger Berkowitz
Ewa Płonowska Ziarek turns to Hannah Arendt to argue that digital disinformation is threatening reality itself.

There Are No Holes of Oblivion

Roger Berkowitz
No matter how fully a regime might seek to make people, facts, or inconvenient truths disappear, “there are no holes of oblivion.” Hannah Arendt found in the downfall of the Nazis and the Bolsheviks some hope, namely that totalitarian regimes will always fail when confronted with human freedom and the claim of reality. Aaron Sarin writes about the efforts in China to perfect the surveillance state–and why it is fated to fail. 

Is Alt-Right the New Black?

Roger Berkowitz
N.S. Lyons argues that if the youth of today rebel, "they’re likely to rebel in the only direction they now can: by becoming more traditionalist and conservative.” 

Hannah Arendt at Documenta 15

Roger Berkowitz
This was the 15th Documenta, and the most controversial. It was marred by charges of antisemitism which were returned with accusations of racism. I am not an artist and had never been to a Documenta. But I was particularly interested because I would be participating in Documenta 15 as part of the final installation by the Cuban artist Tania Bruguera and her Instituto de Artivismo Hannah Arendt (INSTAR). The Arendt Center sponsored three talks throughout the week. 

Rage and Reason: The Absurdity of Reality

Roger Berkowitz
A few weeks ago I wrote about Wyatt Mason’s reflections on the Afghan American writer Jamil Jan Kochai and his new book The Haunting of Hajji Hotak. I’m thrilled now that Jamil Jan Kochai will be joining us to speak at the Hannah Arendt Center’s Rage and Reason conference on October 13 and 14th.

Nervous States

Roger Berkowitz
William Davies’ Nervous States is one of my favorite books published in recent years. In it, Davies argues that we are past the point of no return at which emotion has overwhelmed reason as the foundation of our public life.

Rage and Reason: The Case for Rage

Roger Berkowitz
Myisha Cherry argues that anger and rage are, in certain circumstances, and for some people, appropriate responses to injustice. "Anger makes us attentive to wrongdoing and motivates us to pursue justice." Cherry, a philosopher at University of California at Riverside, turns to the thinker Audre Lorde who herself embraced rage that aims at change. For Cherry and Lorde, this "anti-racist rage can be used to engage in action that brings about such a change."