Lunchtime Talk: Barbara V. Bechtolsheim

This event occurred on:  Mon. September 20, 12 pm

SPACE LIMITED
RSVP required: arendt@bard.edu

*This event is in-person only. The event will not be live-streamed, but will be recorded and published on our Youtube channel.

In 1967, Hannah Arendt wrote an article on Revolution and Freedom, most likely as a manuscript for a lecture at the University of Chicago. However, the intellectual couple Arendt and Blücher had been thinking about the freedom to be free to think since the late 1940ies. From their point of view thinking is the precondition of an active involvement in the social and political realm, and yet thoughtfulness is based on political freedom. Arendt´s writing and Blücher´s lectures and their correspondence - and supposedly their conversations - were responses to the question „What can we do?“— to become who we are as free individuals in relation to others and to take on responsibility in a participatory democracy. In my talk I will explore the similarities and differences of (1) their respective definitions of freedom and thinking, (2) their analysis of myth or science or individualization as counterforces of freedom, and (3) the freedom to confront oversimplification, compromises, and convention and thus to be open for new beginnings.

The goal of my talk is to inspire a conversation about how their dialogue about freedom and thinking can be applied to current pressing issues such as freedom of speech, political correctness, and freedom of academic inquiry.

SPACE LIMITED
RSVP required: arendt@bard.edu