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Get Ready for the Arendt Center Confernce!
Roger Berkowitz, Lyndsey Stonebridge, and Uday Mehta joined WAMC Northeast Public Radio's The Roundtable to discuss some of the topics we’ll be delving into at our 16th annual fall conference on Tribalism and Cosmpolitanism this Thursday and Friday!All Categories
What We Are Reading:
Creating Viewpoint Diversity
By Samantha HillMusa Al-Gharbi reflects upon his work for the Heterodox Academy and the difficult work of creating genuine viewpoint diversity on college campuses...
Organize Don’t Mobilize
By Roger BerkowitzThe 2020 election may well come down to three states: Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. If President Trump wins just one of these states—he won all three by slim margins in 2016—it is likely he will be reelected. If a Democrat flips all three, there is a good chance that they will be the next President.
What We Are Reading:
Against Empathy
By Samantha HillPaul Bloom discusses the difference between cognitive and emotional empathy, and why he’s against using empathy as a guide for being in the world.
Organizing from the Ground
Sarah JaffeWe’re here to talk about organizing on the ground. I actually wrote a book about that subject, which I’m going to plug shamelessly.1 I could talk about many, many different examples of organizing and how that builds and sustains social movements; I’m sure we’ll get into many more of them in the Q&A, and I’m happy to answer questions about anyone that you can think of.
Woman as Witness, Beginner, Philosopher
By Jana Schmidt
In “Regarding the Cave” the Italian feminist philosopher Adriana Cavarero offers a reading of Plato’s allegory of the cave that expands on an interpretation of that same narrative by Hannah Arendt. Cavarero is perhaps the first to notice how Arendt’s remarks in “Tradition and the Modern Age,” “What is Authority?,” and The Human Condition connect, how together they form a spirited critique of Western philosophy, and...
Courage to Be Student Essay: On Nicole Dennis-Benn
By Isis PinheiroOn Monday, February 10th, Jamaican novelist Nicole Dennis-Benn visited Bard College as the first speaker of the 2020 Courage to Be lecture series. She is a public health researcher turned professional writer and the author of the acclaimed novel Patsy. Her work deals with issues of homophobia, sexualization of girls, socioeconomic disparities, and themes of identity and love.
What We Are Reading: Academic Freedom and Twitter
By Roger BerkowitzAdam Steinbaugh reports on the decision by Babson College to fire an adjunct faculty member after complaints were made about social media posts he wrote in response to President Trump’s tweet threatening to bomb Iranian cultural sites. After Asheen Phansey suggested that Iran might offer a list of American cultural institutions to attack, Babson was criticized widely for supporting an anti-American professor who was calling for attacks on American cultural sites.
What We Are Reading: Nonviolence
By Samantha HillMasha Gessen interviews Judith Butler for The New Yorker. Butler’s new book, “The Force of Nonviolence” tackles the way we can imagine “an entirely new way for humans to live together in the world.” In the interview, Butler addresses questions of nonviolence, equality, and the liberal notion of individualism.
A Politics of Meaning
By Roger BerkowitzIn an essay on Arendt in this year’s Critique 13/13 Seminars, Seyla Benhabib asks whether it makes sense to read Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition as a core text in the somewhat arcane world of critical theory. For Benahabib, Arendt’s text is “critical” insofar as it “shares with the Marxist tradition a critique of the alienation of the homo faber from the products...