Skip to main content.
Bard HAC
Bard HAC
  • About sub-menuAbout
    Hannah Arendt

    “There are no dangerous thoughts; thinking itself is dangerous.”

    Join HAC
    • About the HAC
      • Our Staff
      • About Hannah Arendt
      • Our Location
  • Programs sub-menuPrograms
    Hannah Arendt
    • Our Programs
    • Courage to Be
    • Campus Plurality Forum
    • Race and Revolution
    • Virtual Reading Group
    • Citizens' Assemblies Summer Workshop
    • Affiliated Programs
    • Hannah Arendt Humanities Network
    • Democracy Through Sortition
    • Meanings of October 27th
  • Academics sub-menuAcademics
    Hannah Arendt

    “Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.”

    • Academics at HAC
    • Undergraduate Courses
    • Practice of Courage Courses
  • Fellows sub-menuFellows
    HAC Fellows

    “Action without a name, a 'who' attached to it, is meaningless.”

    • Fellows
    • Student Fellowships
  • Conferences sub-menuConferences
    Hannah Arendt
    Conference 2021
      
    Watch the Recording

    Fall Conference 2021
    “Revitalizing Democracy”

    Thursday, Thursday, October 14 – Friday, October 15
    • Conferences
    • Past Conferences
    • Registration
    • Our Location
  • Publications sub-menuPublications
    Hannah Arendt
    Subscribe to Amor Mundi

    “I've begun so late, really only in recent years, to truly love the world ... Out of gratitude, I want to call my book on political theories Amor Mundi.”

    • Publications
    • Amor Mundi
    • HA Journal
    • Further Reading
    • Video Gallery
    • From Our Members
    • Podcasts
  • Events sub-menuEvents
    Hannah Arendt

    “It is, in fact, far easier to act under conditions of tyranny than it is to think.”

    —Hannah Arendt
    • HAC Events
    • Upcoming
    • Archive
    • Citizens' Assemblies Summer Workshop
  • Join sub-menu Join HAC
    Hannah Arendt

    “Political questions are far too serious to be left to the politicians.”

    • Join HAC
    • Become a Member
    • Subscribe
    • Virtual Reading Group
    • Join HAC
               
  • Search

HAC Events

View All HAC Events

Hannah Arendt Center presents:

Lunchtime Talk with Marianne LeNabat: "Arendt's Revolutionary Idea: Politics Is Collective Action"

Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Arendt Center
12:00 pm – 2:00 pm

This event occurred on:  Wed. February 20, 12 pm

Both supporters and detractors read Arendt as generally continuous with a certain tradition of civic-minded liberalism or republicanism, insofar as she describes politics as a free deliberation among equals in a public sphere.  But for that very reason, both supporters and detractors underestimate how radically oriented her political theory really was.  While many remember her for lauding the American Revolution, for example, it is easy to forget that she was also a champion of the Hungarian Revolution and its directly democratic council system. LeNabat will argue that these more conservative readings of Arendt are rooted in a neglect of her truly unique contribution to political thought, namely her foregrounding of collective action. As she puts it in her essay on violence, “What makes man a political being is his faculty of action; it enables him to get together with his peers, to act in concert, and to reach out for goals that would never enter his mind, let alone the desires of his heart, had he not been given this gift.”  Despite the fact that Arendt is one of the few theorists to have paid serious theoretical attention to collective action, it remains one aspect of her thought that is most frequently ignored or misrecognized.  LeNabat will show how this concept is crucial to understanding her political theory, including her interest in revolution, and the optimism expressed in her notion of natality. She will then conclude by describing why Arendt’s concept of collective action is crucially important for both apprehending and appraising political movements today.

Marianne LeNabat is a PhD candidate at The New School for Social Research.  Her work focuses on solidarity, spontaneity and collective action, with particular attention to recent political movements.  Outside of academia, she has been involved in student, workplace, and tenant organizing.
 
Footer Contact
Contact HAC
Bard College
PO Box 5000
Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504
845-758-7878
[email protected]
Join the HAC
Become a Member
Subscribe to Amor Mundi
Join the Virtual Reading Group
Follow Us
Image for Twitter
Image for Facebook
Image for YouTube
Image for Instagram