Skip to main content.
Bard HAC
Bard HAC
  • About sub-menuAbout
    Hannah Arendt

    “There are no dangerous thoughts; thinking itself is dangerous.”

    Join HAC
    • About the HAC
      • About Hannah Arendt
      • Book Roger
      • Our Team
      • Our Location
  • Programs sub-menuPrograms
    Hannah Arendt
    • Our Programs
    • Courage to Be
    • Democracy Innovation Hub
    • Virtual Reading Group
    • Dialogue Groups
    • HA Personal Library
    • Affiliated Programs
    • Hannah Arendt Humanities Network
    • Meanings of October 27th
    • Lapham's Quarterly
  • Academics sub-menuAcademics
    Hannah Arendt

    “Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.”

    • Academics at HAC
    • Undergraduate Courses
  • Fellowships sub-menuFellowships
    HAC Fellows

    “Action without a name, a 'who' attached to it, is meaningless.”

    • Fellowships
    • Senior Fellows
    • Associate Fellows
    • Student Fellowships
  • Conferences sub-menuConferences
    JOY: Loving the World in Dark Times Conference poster

    Fall Conference 2025
    “JOY: Loving the World in Dark Times”

    October 16 – 17

    Read More Here
    • Conferences
    • Past Conferences
    • Registration
    • Our Location
    • De Gruyter-Arendt Center Lecture in Political Thinking
  • Publications sub-menuPublications
    Hannah Arendt
    Subscribe to Amor Mundi

    “I've begun so late, really only in recent years, to truly love the world ... Out of gratitude, I want to call my book on political theories Amor Mundi.”

    • Publications
    • Amor Mundi
    • Quote of the Week
    • HA Yearbook
    • Podcast: Reading Hannah Arendt
    • Further Reading
    • Video Gallery
    • From Our Members
  • Events sub-menuEvents
    Hannah Arendt

    “It is, in fact, far easier to act under conditions of tyranny than it is to think.”

    —Hannah Arendt
    • HAC Events
    • Upcoming
    • Archive
    • JOY: Loving the World in Dark Times Conference
    • Bill Mullen Recitation Prize
  • Join sub-menu Join HAC
    Hannah Arendt

    “Political questions are far too serious to be left to the politicians.”

    • Join HAC
    • Become a Member
    • Subscribe
    • Join HAC
               
  • Search
Main Image for Amor Mundi

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.

Subscribe to the Newsletter
About

About

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. 

  • Image for The Radical Politics of Joy
    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.

    READ MORE
  • Image for Civil Disobedience and the Spirit of American Democracy
    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.

    READ MORE
  • Image for Temptations of Tyranny
    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.

    READ MORE
  • Image for An Open Letter To My Friends Who Signed “Philosophy for Palestine”
    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.

    READ MORE
Featured Article

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

All Categories


Article

Kidnapped

Hannah Arendt Center Senior Fellow Wyatt Mason writes about the poet Shane McCrae, who at the age of three was kidnapped by his white grandparents and raised separately from his black father.
08-06-2023
Featured

Hannah Arendt Prize 2023

Roger Berkowitz
My Bard Colleague Masha Gessen has won the Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thinking. Porter Anderson covers the announcement. 
08-06-2023
Article

Milan Kundera and the Slow Life of Complexity

Roger Berkowitz
Milan Kundera died last week at the age of 94. His major novels include The Unbearable Lightness of Being, a thoughtful meditation on Nietzsche’s idea of the eternal return of the same. Robin Ashenden writes an intellectual obituary. 
07-16-2023
Article

AI-Tocracy

Roger Berkowitz
Does AI fundamentally support autocratic government? This is the question Martin Beraja, Andrew Kao, David Yang, and Noam Yuchtman ask in their paper AI-tocracy. 
07-16-2023
Featured

Humanity in the Nuclear and AI Ages

Roger Berkowitz
To think how to respond to the challenge AI poses to humanity, David Nirenberg turns back and asks how the pioneers of the nuclear bomb set about to think about the future of man. J. Robert Oppenheimer helped bequeath humanity not only the nuclear bomb, but also the means to think about how to live as human beings in the nuclear age. After his work on the bomb as the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory, Oppenheimer served 20 years as director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J.. home to some of the world’s leading scientists, including Albert Einstein.
07-16-2023

Samuel Delany

Roger Berkowitz
Julian Lucas profiles Samuel Delany, one of  the most vibrant and extraordinary writers of our era. I first encountered Delany’s Babel 17 in a college course. I was obsessed with the “Return to Nevèrÿon” series in graduate school, and his books Mad Man  and Times Square Red, Times Square Blue provoked me in the most profound ways. I regularly recommend or gift his memoir The Motion of Light on Water. There are few personalities, writers, and intellectuals with the capacity to surprise and provoke that Delany possesses. His independence of mind and impartiality against the world are extraordinary, something that to my mind unites him with Hannah Arendt.
07-09-2023

The Joy of Being In a Rageful Movement

Roger Berkowitz
David French captures something essential about the endurance of the Trump MAGA movement. So many outside the movement see these MAGA voters as angry, enraged, violent, and racist. And one must admit that the movement is all of those things, at times. But what outsiders forget, or what they are unable or unwilling to see, is that the movement is not built on rage.
07-09-2023
Featured

Digital Humanism Summit on Generative AI and Democratic Sustainability

Roger Berkowitz
I spent last week at the Digital Humanism Initiative Summit on Generative AI and Democratic Sustainability in Vienna. Over fifty scholars, computer scientists, regulators, and activists from more than 20 countries met for two full days to think together about the threat AI poses to democracy. Watch the recorded public presentation and read our provisional statement.
07-09-2023
Article, Featured

Power and Authority

The last 10 days have seen the Supreme Court reject the dangerous Independent State Legislature theory that would have allowed, amongst other things, state legislatures to deny the will of the voters and direct their electors on whom to cast that state’s electoral college votes. The Court also ended affirmative action in colleges and universities calling it a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, said that the effort to use an emergency authorization law passed in the wake of 9/11 does not give the Secretary of Education the right to administratively forgive student debt, and decided that a web designer does not have to take on clients whose views violate her firmly held religious beliefs. While the decision denying the State Legislature theory has been praised by liberals and some conservatives, the decisions on affirmative action, student debt, and the conflict between free speech and equal protection have been wildly unpopular amongst liberals. The result is that many on the left are once again calling for reform of the Supreme Court. 
07-02-2023
<<  <  8  9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  [18] 19  20  21  22  23  24  25  26  27  28  >  >> 
Footer Contact
Contact HAC
Bard College
PO Box 5000
Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504
845-758-7878
[email protected]
Join the HAC
Become a Member
Subscribe to Amor Mundi
Join the Virtual Reading Group
Follow Us
Image for Bluesky
Image for YouTube
Image for Instagram
Image for LinkedIn