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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
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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.12-30-2019
The Unquestioned Optimism of Futurists
This week, we are republishing an essay from Nikita Nelin, originally published in February, 2019.12-27-2019
“How is possible to learn something new from history?”[1]
By Denisse Mendoza JaimesIt 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...
12-18-2019
What We're Reading: Antisemitism & Free Speech
By Samantha HillKen 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.
12-18-2019
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.12-13-2019
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.12-10-2019
America: What Are We Fighting For?
By Roger BerkowitzThe Hannah Arendt Center Conference “The Unmaking of Americans: Are There Still American Ideas Worth Fighting For?” posed a simple yet controversial question: Is America an exceptional country? In other words, Is there an American Idea? And if yes, what is the idea on which America is founded? Those of us who care about the collective American project— the idea of building a common constitutional democracy—have an imperative to ask: What is...
12-10-2019
What We're Reading: Arendt on the Political
By Samantha HillIn an Interview with the Cambridge blog fifteen eightyfour, David Arndt discusses his new book Arendt on the Political. The book addresses the questions of politics and the political sphere while thinking about the underlying problems of democratic politics.
12-10-2019
Walter Benjamin's Last Work
WHEN HANNAH ARENDT escaped the Gurs internment camp in the middle of June 1940, she did not go to Marseilles to find her husband Heinrich Blücher — she went to Lourdes to find Walter Benjamin. — Samantha Hill writes this week for the L.A. Review of Books12-09-2019