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Literature Program, Hannah Arendt Center, and American Studies Program present:
Hannah Arendt, James Baldwin,
and the Politics of Kinship
Siobhan Phillips, Associate Professor of English
Dickinson College
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
RKC 103
6:30 pm
This event occurred on:
Tue. November 15, 6:30 pm
In the crucial years of the early 1960s, both Hannah Arendt and James Baldwin identified the problems of U.S. history as, in part, problems of kinship—affiliations created and distorted when the exigencies of human vulnerability must be satisfied in a liberal society structured by race slavery. Both distrusted the model of family they saw around them; both used the specific problems of that model to imagine different and more democratic relationships. The results challenge current conceptions of both Arendt and Baldwin by uncovering how their psychological acuity supports their historical/ethical vision. This talk aims to recognize the resources of that vision, then and now.
In the crucial years of the early 1960s, both Hannah Arendt and James Baldwin identified the problems of U.S. history as, in part, problems of kinship—affiliations created and distorted when the exigencies of human vulnerability must be satisfied in a liberal society structured by race slavery. Both distrusted the model of family they saw around them; both used the specific problems of that model to imagine different and more democratic relationships. The results challenge current conceptions of both Arendt and Baldwin by uncovering how their psychological acuity supports their historical/ethical vision. This talk aims to recognize the resources of that vision, then and now.