InCircolo presents:
Call for Papers: InCircolo
“The Urge to Understand: Inhabiting the Crisis with Hannah Arendt”
Edited by Irene Quiliconi, HAC Visiting Scholar
Monday, March 15, 2027
Online Event
This event occurs on:
Mon. March 15
“What is important for me is to understand. For me, writing is a matter of seeking this understanding”, Hannah Arendt revealed during her famous 1964 interview with Günter Gaus. In its immediacy, this statement captures the defining hallmark of Arendt’s entire thought—a body of reflection that consistently stems from the “facts of living experience,” especially when confronting complex and painful realities. This persistent effort to understand arises from a deeply rooted awareness of the need to remain in the present and to inhabit the world, understood in Arendt’s work as the sole realm, woven from plurality and relationality, in which it is possible for human beings to lead an authentic and meaningful life. Marked by the recognition of the collapse of traditional reference points and common sense, Arendt’s reflection discerns a vast heuristic potential within the crisis of the modern world. Arendt does not limit herself to diagnosing the fracture; she also offers us some coordinates to inhabit it. It is an invitation to transform today’s rhetoric of “crisis” into an opportunity to suspend our prejudices, returning to questioning and judging reality with fresh eyes. This special issue of the journal invites contributors to embrace the Arendtian challenge of reflecting on the present by inhabiting the crisis. We solicit papers that adopt the author’s thought as a fruitful framework for research, whether through a critical investigation internal to her corpus or by applying her perspective to the emergencies of the contemporary world.
Possible thematic axes include, but are not limited to:
(a) The Crisis Linked to the Loss of the World. In The Human Condition, Arendt reconstructs the landmark historical shifts that birthed the modern world, highlighting its intrinsic risk of becoming worldless (worldlessness). Among the achievements of the modern world that signal this detachment from man’s situated and worldly condition, Arendt identifies technological acceleration and developments in bioethics. How does Arendt’s diagnosis of modern roots help us decipher contemporary forms of world alienation? Which categories from The Human Condition, as well as other Arendtian writings, can be revisited or put to the test considering the massive expansion of automation, artificial intelligence, and biotechnology?
(b) The Crisis of the Political: The Contraction of the Plural and Relational Public Sphere. To reduce politics merely to a procedural dimension or to the state apparatus means misunderstanding its essence, which resides in a plural and relational public realm woven from words and deeds. How is the Arendtian diagnosis of the crisis of the public realm articulated within her broader reflection on the political? How can we draw upon her concept of worldness to question current forms of disengagement, the privatization of public life, and new arenas —including virtual ones—of collective dialogue?
(c) The Crisis of Authority and the Broken Thread of Tradition. The essays collected in Between Past and Future represent the primary theoretical locus in which Arendt reflects on the collapse of authority, the breaking of the ‘thread of tradition,’ and the loss of inherited reference points. Within this new horizon, the challenge is to think and act “without a banister”. How does Arendtian reflection address this structural void? What relationship does it articulate with an irrevocably broken tradition? To what extent does this diagnosis provide us with tools to understand today’s widespread distrust in institutions, the crisis of cultural transmission, and the search for new horizons of meaning?
(d) The Crisis of Education and Responsibility Toward the World. The educational context serves as a strategic site where responsibility for the world is articulated and where the dialectic between preserving the past and the promise of “natality” plays out. How is the delicate balance between the preservation of tradition and the need for novelty in the world mapped within Arendt’s reflection? In what ways can Arendt’s insights into the intergenerational fracture help us decipher current transformations in pedagogy, contemporary youth movements, and the challenge of transmitting a common world to new generations?
(e) The Ecological-Environmental Crisis: Categories of Nature, World, and Earth. Although Arendt did not develop an ecological philosophy per se, her reflections offer a crucial conceptual framework for contemporary environmental debates. In The Human Condition, Arendt draws a vital distinction between the relentless cycles of nature and the stability of the human artifice that constitutes the world. Extending the rhythms of consumption to every sphere of existence, coupled with the hybris of technology attempting to master natural processes, has paved the way for a profound crisis in our ability to inhabit Planet Earth—to which the human condition is inextricably bound. How are the concepts of nature, world, and earth articulated within Arendt’s oeuvre? To what extent can her critique of consumer society help us confront current ecological challenges?
Contributions are requested to be sent by email to [email protected] and [email protected]. The submission deadline is March 15th, 2027. Authors are kindly asked to follow the editorial guidelines available for download at https://www.incircolorivistafilosofica.it/per-gli-autori/
Both Italian and English articles are welcome!
“What is important for me is to understand. For me, writing is a matter of seeking this understanding”, Hannah Arendt revealed during her famous 1964 interview with Günter Gaus. In its immediacy, this statement captures the defining hallmark of Arendt’s entire thought—a body of reflection that consistently stems from the “facts of living experience,” especially when confronting complex and painful realities. This persistent effort to understand arises from a deeply rooted awareness of the need to remain in the present and to inhabit the world, understood in Arendt’s work as the sole realm, woven from plurality and relationality, in which it is possible for human beings to lead an authentic and meaningful life. Marked by the recognition of the collapse of traditional reference points and common sense, Arendt’s reflection discerns a vast heuristic potential within the crisis of the modern world. Arendt does not limit herself to diagnosing the fracture; she also offers us some coordinates to inhabit it. It is an invitation to transform today’s rhetoric of “crisis” into an opportunity to suspend our prejudices, returning to questioning and judging reality with fresh eyes. This special issue of the journal invites contributors to embrace the Arendtian challenge of reflecting on the present by inhabiting the crisis. We solicit papers that adopt the author’s thought as a fruitful framework for research, whether through a critical investigation internal to her corpus or by applying her perspective to the emergencies of the contemporary world.
Possible thematic axes include, but are not limited to:
(a) The Crisis Linked to the Loss of the World. In The Human Condition, Arendt reconstructs the landmark historical shifts that birthed the modern world, highlighting its intrinsic risk of becoming worldless (worldlessness). Among the achievements of the modern world that signal this detachment from man’s situated and worldly condition, Arendt identifies technological acceleration and developments in bioethics. How does Arendt’s diagnosis of modern roots help us decipher contemporary forms of world alienation? Which categories from The Human Condition, as well as other Arendtian writings, can be revisited or put to the test considering the massive expansion of automation, artificial intelligence, and biotechnology?
(b) The Crisis of the Political: The Contraction of the Plural and Relational Public Sphere. To reduce politics merely to a procedural dimension or to the state apparatus means misunderstanding its essence, which resides in a plural and relational public realm woven from words and deeds. How is the Arendtian diagnosis of the crisis of the public realm articulated within her broader reflection on the political? How can we draw upon her concept of worldness to question current forms of disengagement, the privatization of public life, and new arenas —including virtual ones—of collective dialogue?
(c) The Crisis of Authority and the Broken Thread of Tradition. The essays collected in Between Past and Future represent the primary theoretical locus in which Arendt reflects on the collapse of authority, the breaking of the ‘thread of tradition,’ and the loss of inherited reference points. Within this new horizon, the challenge is to think and act “without a banister”. How does Arendtian reflection address this structural void? What relationship does it articulate with an irrevocably broken tradition? To what extent does this diagnosis provide us with tools to understand today’s widespread distrust in institutions, the crisis of cultural transmission, and the search for new horizons of meaning?
(d) The Crisis of Education and Responsibility Toward the World. The educational context serves as a strategic site where responsibility for the world is articulated and where the dialectic between preserving the past and the promise of “natality” plays out. How is the delicate balance between the preservation of tradition and the need for novelty in the world mapped within Arendt’s reflection? In what ways can Arendt’s insights into the intergenerational fracture help us decipher current transformations in pedagogy, contemporary youth movements, and the challenge of transmitting a common world to new generations?
(e) The Ecological-Environmental Crisis: Categories of Nature, World, and Earth. Although Arendt did not develop an ecological philosophy per se, her reflections offer a crucial conceptual framework for contemporary environmental debates. In The Human Condition, Arendt draws a vital distinction between the relentless cycles of nature and the stability of the human artifice that constitutes the world. Extending the rhythms of consumption to every sphere of existence, coupled with the hybris of technology attempting to master natural processes, has paved the way for a profound crisis in our ability to inhabit Planet Earth—to which the human condition is inextricably bound. How are the concepts of nature, world, and earth articulated within Arendt’s oeuvre? To what extent can her critique of consumer society help us confront current ecological challenges?
Contributions are requested to be sent by email to [email protected] and [email protected]. The submission deadline is March 15th, 2027. Authors are kindly asked to follow the editorial guidelines available for download at https://www.incircolorivistafilosofica.it/per-gli-autori/
Both Italian and English articles are welcome!