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    JOY: Loving the World in Dark Times Conference poster

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    “JOY: Loving the World in Dark Times”

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Amor Mundi

The weekly newsletter of the Hannah Arendt Center
What is most difficult, writes Arendt, is to love the world as it is. Loving the world means neither uncritical acceptance nor contemptuous rejection, but the unwavering facing up to and comprehension of that which is. The opinions expressed in essays on our site are those of their authors.

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About

About

Amor Mundi (for love of the world) is an exploration of Arendtian topics delivered to your inbox every Sunday morning. This includes deep dives into the works of Hannah Arendt and the implications of her ideas on the world today. We feature varied, nuanced, and often opposing viewpoints in this non-partisan publication, and brave and provocative ideas that will help you (re)discover the joy of deep thinking and caring about the world.

When you subscribe to the newsletter, you'll also receive first-hand updates on what we’re doing at HAC (conferences, events, workshops, etc.), an Arendt Quote of the Week with in-depth analysis from Arendt scholars from around the world, and highlights of the work being done on campus by our Student Fellows. Be among the first to know about special offers from our partners and upcoming events!

We've been publishing weekly essays here on our website since 2010, and are now transitioning to the publication platform Medium. You can still read for free with links from our email each Sunday! But now you can highlight sections and comment, too!

Browse our Library of Amor Essays on Medium
 

A note to new Medium users: if you see an offer pop-up, just simply X out to close and continue reading. You can also Follow HAC on Medium and Subscribe to our publications, to receive additional notifications so you don't miss an essay. 

  • Image for The Radical Politics of Joy
    The Radical Politics of Joy
    "Is Joy really what Arendt wants us to be talking about, amidst the most racist, cruel, and criminal American administration since the Civil Rights era?" So asked one of my favorite former students, protesting the theme of this year's Hannah Arendt Center Conference: JOY: Loving the World in Dark Times.

    READ MORE
  • Image for Civil Disobedience and the Spirit of American Democracy
    Civil Disobedience and the Spirit of American Democracy
    Hannah Arendt wrote that, “Dissent implies consent, and is the hallmark of free government.” We are at a moment when dissent is required if we are to preserve our freedoms.

    READ MORE
  • Image for Temptations of Tyranny
    Temptations of Tyranny
    “If this isn’t tyranny, what is?” So asks Rod Dreher, one of President Trump’s most steadfast intellectual supporters, now increasingly alarmed by the President’s abuses of power.

    READ MORE
  • Image for An Open Letter To My Friends Who Signed “Philosophy for Palestine”
    An Open Letter To My Friends Who Signed “Philosophy for Palestine”
    These are dark times as multiple crises are erupting around the world while talk of a global conflagration is heard in many circles. These are also times that try human relationships, friendships, and alliances.

    READ MORE
Featured Article

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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Featured

Great Cases Make Bad Law

Roger Berkowitz critiques the Supreme Court's ruling in Trump v. United States, contending it grants presidents excessive immunity from criminal prosecution, thereby eroding essential checks and balances in American democracy. His analysis cautions against establishing a perilous precedent that undermines accountability for presidential misconduct, posing a significant threat to the core tenets of republicanism and democratic governance.
07-05-2024
Article, Featured

The Two Saviors Who Would Destroy Us

In Fintan O'Toole's reflection on Biden's savior complex, he observes that those who define themselves by their opposites risk becoming like them. Biden's struggle against Trump's shadow, vividly seen in his disintegration during the CNN debate, illustrates this dangerous parallelism, where Biden's attempts at differentiation are overshadowed by Trump's presence, eroding his own persona and political effectiveness.
07-05-2024
Quote of the Week

What Happens When We Theorists Cease to Believe in What We Are Doing

This Arendt-Bay exchange has stayed with me throughout my intellectual career. It’s more and more the case that academics are committed to the view that intellectual activity is justified by “engagement” in the sense of helping to solve the world’s problems. They are less and less committed to the life of the mind as something that is self-justifying, as something that is humanly essential whether or not it’s successful in addressing “modern problems.” The instrumentalist view embraced by Bay has continually gained ground; the non- or anti-instrumentalist view defended by Arendt has steadily lost ground. If the implications for “this whole discipline” (philosophy and social and political theory) looked worrisome in 1972, they look positively dire in 2024.
07-02-2024
Featured

The Fighting Spirit

Ian Buruma reminds us that world wars can start in peripheral places. Buruma, like many today, worry that the next major war may well begin in Taiwan. Reviewing a series of books about how to defend a democratic Taiwan, Buruma shows that Taiwan’s would-be boosters are calling not just for missiles and drones, but the emergence of a militaristic and warrior culture.  Amidst the calls for a resurgence of the fighting spirit, Buruma reminds us of the nuance and complexity of history.
06-29-2024
Featured

As Reality Fades 
 

One man lies so unapologetically and with such bravado that reality seems to retreat in the face of his passionate conviction. The other man is confused, seemingly losing track of the world as it passes him by. Within minutes of the beginning of the U.S. presidential debate on Thursday, it was clear to anyone watching that Joe Biden is too mentally incapacitated to run an effective campaign for President. It is equally obvious that Donald Trump has no business being President for a second term. Beyond the obvious, what is so terrifying about our political moment is the way that both sides have become so fully committed to lying. 
 
06-28-2024
Featured

Courage to Be Student Fellow Reflection: Julia Kiernan
 

What kind of courage does it take to reach into unknowing? How can justice come about from a courageous artistic practice? As much as speaking up can be a political act, how can moments of silence bring about change? These are all questions approached by poet, musician, and artist Jerome Ellis in his performance and lecture, which was the second installment in the Courage to Be series in the 2024 spring semester.
06-26-2024

The Courage to Distinguish Facts from Judgments
 

Courage, Hannah Arendt believed, is the first virtue of politics. Martin Gurri makes a similar argument, arguing that the post-truth malaise we find ourselves in requires the courage to distinguish facts from judgments. Gurri writes, "We are supposed to live in a post-truth world What does that mean? Basically, that trust in our interpreters of truth—the elites, the mediating class, whatever one chooses to call them—has evaporated. We haven’t believed our presidents for at least a generation."
06-22-2024
Featured

The Second Founding

We celebrated Juneteenth National Independence Day this week on June 19, a Federal Holiday since 2021. As the newest Federal Holiday and the first new Federal Holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day established in 1983, the country is still figuring out the meaning of Juneteenth. One imagines that sometime soon there will be Juneteenth sales and Juneteenth greeting cards. But as the Holiday lurches toward consumerism, it is also important that we build a narrative around the meaning of Juneteenth as a National Independence Day. Towards that end, Condoleezza Rice argues that Juneteenth celebrates the second founding of the United States.
06-22-2024

An Autonomies Student Fellow Reflection: Declan Carney

This was my first semester at the Hannah Arendt Center, and I am very glad to have had the privilege of working with the other student fellows in the Autonomies program. They programmed some very fascinating events throughout the semester with thought provoking speakers, from Nora Krug to Maya van Rossum, and I learned a great deal at each talk. By assisting at the Autonomies lectures, as well as at the Bill Mullen Poetry Recitation contest, I was able to connect with my peers and gain an appreciation for their thoughtfulness, ambition, and humility.
06-21-2024
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