Amor Mundi

Everything is Fragile: Reading Arendt in the Anthropocene

John D. Macready, professor of philosophy at Collin College, offers this week's Quote of the Week.
This essay was originally published in Amor Mundi on July 18, 2019.

Democracy in Name Only

From our 2017 annual conference, Madeleine Rosen asks “Has representative democracy failed?”

Racism and Antisemitism

The 2019 Hannah Arendt Center Annual Conference “Racism and Antisemitism” began with Arendt’s insight that antisemitism is a form of racism in that both are ideologies of supremacy and inferiority based on racial difference. Enjoy this video about the conference made by Bard Student and Arendt Center Fellow Jonathan Fine.

The Unquestioned Optimism of Futurists

This week, we are republishing an essay from Nikita Nelin, originally published in February, 2019.

Arendt’s Eichmann: Murderer, Idealist, Clown

By Jerome Kohn
Adolf Eichmann was a Nazi Higher SS officer and member of the Gestapo during the Second World War. When the Final Solution of the Jewish Problem was adopted as German policy at the Wannsee Conference in January 1942, it became Eichmann’s job to organize the destruction of millions of Jews.

“How is possible to learn something new from history?”[1]

By Denisse Mendoza Jaimes
It is well-known that Hannah Arendt was a German Jewish political theorist who dedicated her life to understanding the meaning of political action in human life. During the interview “Zur person” with Günther Gaus, Arendt points out that her interest in history and politics started in 1933. She took part as a political actor recompiling antisemitic statements...

What We're Reading: Antisemitism & Free Speech 

By Samantha Hill
Ken Stern, who runs the Center for the Study of Hate at Bard College, writes about Donald Trump’s Executive Order that was signed this week. Stern was responsible for drafting the working definition of antisemitism used in Trump’s order when he worked for the American Jewish Committee, and is now worried that it is being used to silence free speech on college campuses.

A Letter from Founder and Academic Director Roger Berkowitz

The work we do at the Hannah Arendt Center depends on the support of our members. From our diverse group of student and senior fellows to our annual conference, Amor Mundi to the HA Journal, your contributions are vital and deeply appreciated. During this holiday season, we hope you will consider helping us continue to foster bold and provocative events, publications, and academics in the spirit of Hannah Arendt.

On Walter Benjamin’s Legacy: A Correspondence Between Hannah Arendt and Theodor Adorno

THE 1967 CORRESPONDENCE between Hannah Arendt and Theodor W. Adorno followed Walter Benjamin’s death by nearly 30 years. The acrimony that grew between Arendt and Adorno during the intervening decades is present in these letters. Who had the right, ethically and intellectually, to edit and publish Benjamin’s work?  — Susan H. Gillespie and Samantha Rose Hill write in the L.A. Review of Books.