Amor Mundi

Masha Gessen on Language, Loneliness, and the American Story

The central object of (Arendt’s) study is what happens to society when there’s too much distance, or not enough distance. . . . It is so important in her thinking that people think with one another. In order to think with one another, they have to feel their separateness from one another. You have to be an individual capable of forming an opinion, and expressing it, and exchanging it, and seeing the reflection of your ideas in the eyes of others.

Perpetual War Cultivates Militarism

Brad Evans interviews Vincent Brown about violence, white privilege, and police brutality. Brown begins with an account of the violent foundation of American life. 

Real Risk Analysis

Roger Berkowitz
Hong Kong democracy was always a project rather than a reality. But the movement for democracy in Hong Kong had been gaining steam for a decade. With the unanimous vote by the Chinese National People’s Congress this week, the hope for democracy in Hong Kong has gone up in smoke. The increasingly totalitarian Chinese Communist Party is solidifying rule at home and mobilizing its people for a long-term confrontation with the West, especially with the United States.

The Academic Freedom Alliance

Roger Berkowitz
I have joined The Academic Freedom Alliance (AFA) as a founding member. The AFA “is a non-profit organization whose members are dedicated to protecting the rights of faculty members at colleges and universities to speak, instruct, and publish without fear of sanction or punishment. We uphold the principles that are required if scholars are to fulfill their vocation as truth-seekers..."

The Amor Mundi Podcast Episode 11: Masha Gessen

In the latest Amor Mundi Podcast, Roger Berkowitz and Masha Gessen talk about how even amidst the rise of subjectivism and the internalization of the world—what Hannah Arendt calls world alienation—there has remained a commitment to a common or shared world. Yet, it is precisely that common world that today seems endangered, and Gessen asks how language is used in anti-political ways to undermine the world we share.

Is There a Crisis of Academic Freedom?

Eric Kauffmann, who spoke at the Arendt Center’s last conference, has published a study on “Partisanship and Ideology” in the academy. In an op-ed summarizing his study, Kauffmann argues that while academics frequently brush aside worries about partisanship and disciplining of faculty for their opinions, “Academic freedom is in crisis on American campuses.”

Accepted Falsities

Roger Berkowitz
There are simply too many accepted truths that are not true. Two recent essays make the case that the Press needs to do better at avoiding making false claims, claims that then come to be accepted as verities. Holman Jenkins Jr. writes that Musicologist Ted Gioia  “may be on to something when he says that after 9/11, the long reign of cool had ended, the reign of hot had begun.”

Peter Kennard on Arendt and Art

As part of Hannah Arendt Center’s collaboration with the Richard Saltoun Gallery and its year-long exhibition “On Hannah Arendt,” Roger Berkowitz interviews Peter Kennard, one of the artists featured in the show. The interview touches on Kennard’s art, Arendt’s essay “The Concept of History,” and the importance of political art.

Model of Courage: Adolph L. Reed Jr.

On Wednesday, February 17th, the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College welcomed Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, Adolph L. Reed Jr. as keynote speaker for its first “Courage to Be” Lecture of the Spring 2021 semester.  Written by 2020/21 Student Fellow Sage Saccomanno