These are dark times. The hardest thing to do in dark times, writes Hannah Arendt, is to love the world. She invokes the Latin phrase Amor Mundi, For the Love of the World, to express the unspeakably difficult effort to reconcile with the world as it is while also insisting that the world must change. The Hannah Arendt Center aims, in the spirit of Hannah Arendt’s bold and provocative writing, to offer an institutional space where we can, in her words, “think what we are doing.” In response to the murders of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery, the tirade by Amy Cooper, and the revolutionary civil disobedience movement that has sprung up to demand dignity and justice for black lives, the Arendt Center has put together a webpage highlighting talks and events that shed light on questions of antiracism, civil disobedience, and police violence. We pledge to redouble our efforts to bring light to the dark times.
Stevenson Library at
Bard College.
A Message to the Bard Community
from President Botstein
“On behalf of the entire Bard College community, I want to express our solidarity with all who grieve for the deaths, with all who live in constant fear of the brutality of racial discrimination, and with all who find themselves without hope in these dark and violent times. [...] Something has to change in a way that actually helps the lives of our fellow citizens and neighbors of color.” —Bard College President Leon Botstein.
The Power Behind the Revolution
by Roger Berkowitz
Whether George Floyd died from asphyxiation or some combination of “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression,” as the official Hennepin County autopsy has it, anyone can see that former police officer Derek Chauvin sat firmly on Mr. Floyd’s neck, left hand casually in his pocket as if bored, for over 8 minutes while three other officers calmly looked on. Even as observers on the scene screamed out the obvious—that former officer Chauvin was murdering George Floyd—the officers barely flinched in their slow-motion murder—murder of a gruesome kind. It was done to an unarmed black man in handcuffs with a nonchalance that can only be explained either by psychopathy or racism.
Crises of Democracy: "After Mediocrity"
From the Hannah Arendt Center's 10th annual conference,
"Crises of Democracy: Thinking in Dark Times."
Teju Cole with moderator Wyatt Mason
October 13th, 2017 - Bard College, NY
The Origins of Totalitarianism
The Virtual Reading Group
In this series, the VRG explored Hannah Arendt's The Origin of Totalitarianism.
The Courage to Be Lecture: Mariame Kaba
“Courage is Contagious:” Police Torture, Reparations & Making #BlackLivesMatter in Chicago
