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[Lunchtime Talk with visiting Hannah Arendt Center Visiting Fellow, Shmuel Lederman]

Hannah Arendt Center presents:

Lunchtime Talk with visiting Hannah Arendt Center Visiting Fellow, Shmuel Lederman

"Relations between Hannah Arendt's council system and The Human Condition"

Wednesday, April 15, 2015
Arendt Center
12:00 pm

This event occurred on:  The few studies that have been dedicated to Hannah Arendt's advocacy of participatory democracy in the form of a council system, for the most part neglect The Human Condition as a resource for this discussion. Shmuel Lederman will argue that there are important links between the council system and Arendt's exploration of 'the political' in The Human Condition. He will note Arendt's conception of genuine politics presupposes a political space in the form and spirit of the councils. Action, the 'space of appearances,' freedom, power – these political phenomena, in the special sense Arendt conceptualizes them, require a public sphere limited in size, where citizens are physically present together, and are able to speak directly to each other, act together and disclose who they are. Approaching The Human Condition from the perspective of Arendt's advocacy of the council system, Shmuel will further argue, sheds new light on some important and controversial issues that have emerged in the scholarly literature on Arendt, in particular the tension between the 'agonist' and the 'deliberative' models of politics she presents in her works.
Shmuel Lederman holds a Ph.D from the University of Haifa in Israel. His research interests include Hannah Arendt's political thought; democratic theory; genocide; and the Israeli-Arab conflict. Shmuel's doctoral dissertation explored the role the council system plays in Arendt's thought. He has published articles on this topic and other themes in Arendt's thought in journals such as Constellations, Yad Vashem Studies andScience & Society. He teaches Genocide at the International MA Program in Holocaust Studies at the University of Haifa; as well as Philosophy of Education; Jewish History; and Genocide at The Open University of Israel. As a visiting research fellow at Bard he intends to work an a manuscript for a book that will further explore Arendt's council system and its contribution to democratic theory.

Date: 4/15/2014
Time: 12 noon
Rsvp at [email protected]
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