Amor Mundi

Loneliness and the Loss of the Common World

Roger Berkowitz
Until recently, I had not left my apartment for 33 days. I did not touch another human being—not even the members of my family with whom I live—for  even longer. The virus has been mild in my case. It is nearly gone. Physically, I am fine. I am one of the lucky ones; I never had to make a decision whether to go to a hospital, alone, not knowing whether I would see family and friends ever again.

What We Are Reading:
Viral Extremities

Roger Berkowitz
Kristian Blickle of the Federal Reserve Board of New York has published a working paper, “Pandemics Change Cities: Municipal Spending and Voter Extremism in Germany, 1918-1933.” As described by Quint Forgey, Blickle’s paper “concludes that deaths caused by the 1918 influenza pandemic “profoundly shaped German society” in subsequent years and contributed to the strengthening of the Nazi Party.”

Revitalizing Democracy Through Citizen Assemblies

This is episode 10, “Revitalizing Democracy Through Citizen Assemblies.” It features the Arendt Center's Founder and Director Roger Berkowitz and Jonas Kunz, co-founder of the Bard Institute for the Revival of Democracy Through Sortition, giving a talk and leading a discussion over Zoom. The talk was organized by Lawrence Davis-Hollander and the Scoville Memorial Library and took place on Saturday, April 18, 2020.

Radical Racial Imaginations

Roger Berkowitz
A bit over a year ago I attended a symposium on  “Black Intellectuals & The Condition of the Culture” at Skidmore College, featuring Margo Jefferson, Darryl Pinckney, Thomas Chatterton Williams, Orlando Patterson and John McWhorter. The conversations were free and provocative and at times brilliant. Now the transcripts of the symposium have been published by SALMAGUNDI.

Listen to the Experts?

Roger Berkowitz
Over and again we hear the refrain: “Listen to the experts.” Amidst a crisis that has witnessed a disastrous response from President Trump and  the federal government and from many states and cities—Mayor Bill DeBlasio has been particularly inept causing untold misery for New Yorkers like myself—there is a desire to have the experts guide us. 

I Am (Not) a Monster

Roger Berkowitz

In “I Am (Not) a Monster,” a new movie by Dr. Nelly Ben Hayoun, Dr. Hayoun travels around the world dressed as Hannah Arendt to ask thinkers and activists about the origins of knowledge. Ben Hayoun, a Senior Fellow at the Hannah Arendt Center and the founder of the University of the Underground, begins with Arendt’s idea that “To act is to begin something new.”

Failed President

Samantha Hill
Writing for the New York Review of Book, Fintan O’Toole dissects Trump’s failed leadership. Faced with a real emergency, Trump has been unable to set aside his self-promoting narcissism to guide the American people. O’Toole highlights the extent to which Trump’s delimited worldview as a business leader has influenced his posturing in managing the pandemic, examining at elisions in his language and refusal to face reality.

How to Think About Change

This is episode 8, “How to Think About Change” It features the Arendt Center's Founder and Director Roger Berkowitz in a Zoom conversation with both Chiara Ricciardone- a political thinker, and the Klemens von Klemperer Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College, and with Micah White- Activist, co-creator of Occupy Wall Street, and author of The End of Protest. Ricciardone and White are married and co-founders of the Activist Graduate School.

The Rule of Nobody

This is episode 9, “The Rule of Nobody,”  It features the Arendt Center's Founder and Director Roger Berkowitz in a Zoom conversation with Philip K. Howard, lawyer and activist. Howard has written five books including “The Death of Common Sense” and “The Rule of Nobody,” a reference to Hannah Arendt’s description of bureaucratic rule.  He also started Common Good, a nonpartisan...