Hannah Arendt Center presents:
Lunchtime Talk: Anna Argirò
Arendt and Natality: Including Maternity in the Discourse around Birth
Monday, April 25, 2022
Arendt Center
1:30 pm
This event occurred on:
Mon. April 25, 1:30 pm
SPACE LIMITED
RSVP required: [email protected]
*This event is in-person only. The event will not be live-streamed, but will be recorded and published on our Youtube channel. Since ancient Greece, mortality has been conceived as a constitutive part of human existence and became a
central category of Western philosophical thought. Contemporary continental philosophers such as
Heidegger, Levinas and Derrida foregrounded this ancient assumption, offering different interpretations of
death. In this context, Hannah Arendt proposes the paradigm of ‘natality’. She interprets the meaning of
birth in terms of ‘initiative’, attending to the human capacity to begin anew through action in a plural
sphere.
Building upon the work of feminist philosophers such as Adriana Cavarero, I suggest reframing Arendt’s
notion of natality by including the maternal figure in the discourse around birth. In this way, I will show how
maternally oriented philosophical thought may challenge traditional philosophical and political categories,
such as the notions of initial/initiative, autonomy, freedom, and sovereignty and open up a way of thinking
about the origin of human life and its world-making as intrinsically embodied, affective and relational.
Anna Argirò
In 2016, Anna Argirò obtained a BA in Philosophy from La Sapienza University of Rome, where she also
completed her MA studies in Philosophy (2018). Since September 2020, Anna has been a Ph.D. candidate at
the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy (CRMEP) at Kingston University London. For her
project Rethinking Birth and Maternity as Philosophical Categories: Hannah Arendt’s Notion of Natality in
Dialogue with Contemporary Feminist Thought Anna has been awarded a grant from Sapienza University
(2020-2021), and a scholarship from the UK TECHNE AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership (2021-2024). Her
research period at Hannah Arendt Center is further funded by the UK Turing Scheme.
RSVP required: [email protected]
SPACE LIMITED
RSVP required: [email protected]
*This event is in-person only. The event will not be live-streamed, but will be recorded and published on our Youtube channel. Since ancient Greece, mortality has been conceived as a constitutive part of human existence and became a
central category of Western philosophical thought. Contemporary continental philosophers such as
Heidegger, Levinas and Derrida foregrounded this ancient assumption, offering different interpretations of
death. In this context, Hannah Arendt proposes the paradigm of ‘natality’. She interprets the meaning of
birth in terms of ‘initiative’, attending to the human capacity to begin anew through action in a plural
sphere.
Building upon the work of feminist philosophers such as Adriana Cavarero, I suggest reframing Arendt’s
notion of natality by including the maternal figure in the discourse around birth. In this way, I will show how
maternally oriented philosophical thought may challenge traditional philosophical and political categories,
such as the notions of initial/initiative, autonomy, freedom, and sovereignty and open up a way of thinking
about the origin of human life and its world-making as intrinsically embodied, affective and relational.
Anna Argirò
In 2016, Anna Argirò obtained a BA in Philosophy from La Sapienza University of Rome, where she also
completed her MA studies in Philosophy (2018). Since September 2020, Anna has been a Ph.D. candidate at
the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy (CRMEP) at Kingston University London. For her
project Rethinking Birth and Maternity as Philosophical Categories: Hannah Arendt’s Notion of Natality in
Dialogue with Contemporary Feminist Thought Anna has been awarded a grant from Sapienza University
(2020-2021), and a scholarship from the UK TECHNE AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership (2021-2024). Her
research period at Hannah Arendt Center is further funded by the UK Turing Scheme.
RSVP required: [email protected]