Please Support the Hannah Arendt Center This Holiday Season!

12-03-2014

Dear Valued Supporters,

We live in a time marked by dangerous levels of political cynicism. And yet, there is a palpable yearning to rise above partisanship, a will to articulate and pursue public goods. We saw this in the support for whistleblowers like Edward Snowden and also in the popularity of Rand Paul's filibuster opposing the government's targeted killing of American citizens. We feel it in our disappointment at anemic voter turnout and in our disgust at the corruption of American democracy. And we witnessed it at our seventh annual conference "The Unmaking of Americans: Are There Still American Values Worth Fighting for," where speakers from Charles Murray to George Packer, from Lawrence Lessig to Kendall Thomas, came together to think about those ideals that still inspire and unite Americans to sacrifice for a common dream.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="225"] Roger Berkowitz speaking at this year's annual fall conference.[/caption]

There are moments in the history of any organization when linear progress is replaced by what my five-year old son calls "frog jumps," unpredictable and exceptional leaps to a whole new level. 2014 was such a watershed year for the Arendt Center. Attendance at our events was incredible. Amor Mundi, our Sunday newsletter, is read by thousands and has brought the Center international attention. Our membership numbers spiked, as did our reach on social media platforms. Our blog continued its electric growth and is now reaching 5,000 people every week. This year we also inaugurated our Virtual Reading Group where members from around the world join in reading The Human Condition. Participants are from all walks of life including students, professors, bankers, journalists, and tech workers from Brazil, Japan, France, Germany, Finland, Korea, Canada, and Russia, in addition to many states in the USA. We are hosting numerous post-doctoral, doctoral, and associate fellows as well as visiting scholars from the Netherlands, Spain, Venezuela, Finland, Israel, Germany, France and more.

On the heels of such growth and success, our NEH supported endowment has now reached over $1.2 Million. We still have $300,000 to raise to complete the NEH Grant, but already the NEH endowment is supporting our post-doctoral fellows and has allowed us to host two of Germany's most distinguished contemporary playwrights, Tankred Dorst and Ursula Ehler. Dorst and Ehler were our first of what will now be an annual month-long NEH-Arendt Center Visiting Distinguished Lectureship.I am writing to you, our loyal and enthusiastic supporters, to celebrate our success. As a result of your support, the Arendt Center is now established as a unique and valuable voice in the national dialogue, one that occupies an unprecedented space between and beyond both political think tanks and academic humanities programs.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="250"] The second issue of our HA Journal is now available![/caption]

As eventful as 2014 was, next year promises to be even more exciting. We are inaugurating "The Courage To Be," a program partially funded by the Nathan Cummings and Gilder Foundations. "The Courage to Be: A Philosophical and Religious Exploration of Moral and Spiritual Courage as a Response to Evil in the Global Community" is a collaboration with Bard's Center for Spiritual Life. Imagined as a 3-5 year initiative, it is designed to create a model for other institutions looking to investigate and nurture moral and spiritual courage. It includes post-doctoral fellows, annual lectures at Bard and in NYC, an annual prize, symposia, student fellows, and outreach to schools around the country.

But that's not all. We will host a conference in conjunction with Arendt Center Senior Fellow Wilmot James of the Democratic Alliance in South Africa, which will focus on the connection between property and poverty in South Africa and throughout the developing world; launch a new website, which will be easier to navigate and feature more of our videos and photos from past events; and of course host our eighth annual fall conference on the issue of privacy, which will be held on October 15th and October 16th.

As you know, the Hannah Arendt Center is an intellectual incubator for passionate, uncensored, and non-partisan thinking that reframes and deepens the fundamental questions facing our world. Political forums abound, but the Hannah Arendt Center insists on bringing the humanities to bear on politics - to forge a new path between, on the one hand, partisan think-tanks churning out white papers, and, on the other hand, universities living in a bubble. The HAC leavens politics with the humanities to foster thinking that is smarter than the tired debates.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="250"] Everyone gathered for our 2014 Thanksgiving Potluck![/caption]

The Arendt Center exists to provoke unconventional, surprising, and transformative thinking outside the boundaries of both academic and political debates. As the holiday season is now upon us, please do help us to continue to fulfill that mission. A tax-deductible gift to the Arendt Center says that you agree that an institutional space for thinking about the world from an Arendtian perspective is vital at a moment of thoughtless and predictable debates.

You can make a tax-deductible donation by sending a check made out to HAC at Bard College at the address above. Or, donate online at annandaleonline.org/arendtmember or by clicking on the "DONATE" button below.

I cannot thank you enough for your continued support.

Happy Holidays, and I hope to see you in the New Year.

Roger Berkowitz
Academic Director
Hannah Arendt Center

(Featured Image: Red holiday ornaments; Source: The Home Sitter)