Center for Civic Engagement, Hannah Arendt Center, and OSUN present:
Tribalism and Cosmopolitanism: How Can We Imagine a Pluralist Politics?
Thursday, October 17, 2024 – Friday, October 18, 2024
Olin Hall
Registration
Non-Member Registration Fee: $175 per person.
HAC Members receive complimentary admission for yourself and one (1) guest. If you would like to become a member, or renew a membership, please click HERE before completing registration. Become a member at any level at any dollar amount! If you are unsure if your membership is current, please contact Executive Director, Christine Stanton, at [email protected]. Memberships are valid for one year.Buffet Lunch [optional]: $25 per person, and must be Pre-ordered. Lunch Buffet includes: Grilled Chicken w/ Balsamic Glaze, Tomato Bruschetta, Grilled Vegetables w/ Balsamic Glaze, Salad, Rolls & Butter, Dessert, Soda / Seltzer, Coffee, Tea & Decaf. Otherwise, here's a list of alternative food options located very close to the conference hall. Local Eateries, Kline Commons Dining Hall -- MAP: 3 minute walk from Olin Hall, and Down the Road Cafe, MAP: 7-8 minute walk from Olin Hall
Bard College's COVID-19 policies and FAQ's may be read here. Anyone experiencing COVID symptoms should refrain from coming to campus.
ALL registrants will also receive the link to the live webcast.
Registration Deadline: October 1, 2024 [on-site registration will be available].
Schedule
We will continually update the schedule as the conference date approaches. Schedule subject to change.
Thursday, October 17th10:00am
Title: Introduction
10:10am
Tribalism and Cosmopolitanism
Speaker: Roger Berkowitz
10:30am
Tribalism and the Human Condition
Speaker: Sebastian Junger
Discussant: Roger Berkowitz
11:45am
Another Cosmopolitanism
Speaker: Seyla Benhabib
Discussant: TBD
1:00pm – 2:00pm
Lunch
1:30pm – 2:45pm
Breakout Sessions [OPTIONAL]
Title, time, and locations will be announced in the new future.
2:30pm
On Cosmopolitan Tribalists
Speakers: Shai Lavi and Khaled Furani
3:30pm
On the Tribe of Boys
Speaker: Niobe Way
4:30pm
Hannah Arendt’s Cosmopolitanism
Speaker: Lyndsey Stonebridge
5:00pm
Wine & Cheese Reception
Friday, October 18th
9:30am
Introduction
10:00am
Fintan O'Toole
Discussant: Joseph O'Neill
11:00am
Thomas Chatterton Williams and Ayishat Akanbi followed by a discussion.
Moderator: TBD
12:30pm – 1:30pm
Optional Breakout Sessions [OPTIONAL]
Titles, times, and location will be announced soon.
1:30pm
Lunch
2:30pm
Speaker: Yogendra Yadav
Discussant: Uday Mehta
3:45pm
On Pluralism and Cosmopolitanism in a Tribal Age
Speakers: Glen Weyl, Monica Guzman
Discussant: Allison Stanger
5:00pm
Wine & Cheese Reception
Introduction
10:00am
Fintan O'Toole
Discussant: Joseph O'Neill
11:00am
Thomas Chatterton Williams and Ayishat Akanbi followed by a discussion.
Moderator: TBD
12:30pm – 1:30pm
Optional Breakout Sessions [OPTIONAL]
Titles, times, and location will be announced soon.
1:30pm
Lunch
2:30pm
Speaker: Yogendra Yadav
Discussant: Uday Mehta
3:45pm
On Pluralism and Cosmopolitanism in a Tribal Age
Speakers: Glen Weyl, Monica Guzman
Discussant: Allison Stanger
5:00pm
Wine & Cheese Reception
Speakers
Sebastian Junger
![[Sebastian Junger]](http://www.bard.edu/wwwmedia/arendt-images/Junger.jpeg)
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"Restrepo," which chronicled the deployment of a platoon of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley, is widely considered to have broken new ground in war reporting. Junger has since produced and directed three additional documentaries about war and its aftermath. "Which Way Is The Front Line From Here?", which premiered on HBO, chronicles the life and career of his friend and colleague, photojournalist Tim Hetherington, who was killed while covering the civil war in Libya in 2011. "Korengal" returns to the subject of combat and tries to answer the eternal question of why young men miss war. "The Last Patrol", which also premiered on HBO, examines the complexities of returning from war by following Junger and three friends--all of whom had experienced combat, either as soldiers or reporters--as they travel up the East Coast railroad lines on foot as "high-speed vagrants."
Sebastian Junger is the founder and director of Vets Town Hall.
Junger has also written for magazines including Harper's, The New York Times Magazine, National Geographic Adventure, Outside and Men's Journal. His reporting on Afghanistan in 2000, profiling Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud, who was assassinated just days before 9/11, became the subject of the National Geographic documentary "Into the Forbidden Zone," and introduced America to the Afghan resistance fighting the Taliban.
He lives in New York City and Cape Cod.
Seyla Benhabib
![[Seyla Benhabib]](http://www.bard.edu/wwwmedia/arendt-images/benhabib.jpeg)
She was the President of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association in 2006-07 and has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1995, and an Honorary Fellow of the British Academy since 2018. She has previously taught at the New School for Social Research and Harvard Universities, where she was Professor of Government from 1993-2000 and Chair of Harvard’s Program on Social Studies from 1996-2000.
Professor Benhabib is the recipient of the Ernst Bloch prize for 2009, the Leopold Lucas Prize from the Theological Faculty of the University of Tubingen (2012), and the Meister Eckhart Prize (2014; one of Germany’s most prestigious philosophical prizes). A Guggenheim Fellowship recipient (2011-12), she has been research affiliate and senior scholar in many institutions in the US and in Europe including Berlin’s Wissenschaftskolleg (2009), NYU Strauss Center for the Study of Law and Justice (2012), the European University Institute in Florence (Summer 2015), Center for Gender Studies at Cambridge University ( Spring 2017), Columbia University Law School (Spring 2016; Spring 2018) and Center for Humanities and Critical Theory, Humboldt University Berlin (Summer 2018). She was Albert Hirschman Fellow at the Institute for the Human Sciences in Vienna in November 2023.
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Professor Benhabib holds Honorary Degrees from the Universities of Utrecht (2004), Valencia (2010), Bogazici University in Istanbul (2012), Georgetown University (2014), the University of Geneva (Fall 2018), the Center of Latin American Studies in Chile (Summer 2021) and the Université Catholique de Louvain and KULeuven (jointly awarded). (2024)
Her work has been translated into 13 languages (German, Spanish, French, Italian, Brazilian, Turkish, Swedish, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Hebrew, Polish, Japanese, Chinese and Korean) and she has also edited and coedited 10 volumes on topics ranging from democracy and difference to the rights of migrant women and children; the communicative ethics controversy and Hannah Arendt. The volume, Migrations and Mobilities: Gender, Borders and Citizenship (NYU Press, 2009), co-edited with Judith Resnik from the Yale Law School was named by Choice one of the outstanding academic books of the year.
Her most recent books include: The Claims of Culture. Equality and Diversity in the Global Era, (2002); The Rights of Others. Aliens, Citizens and Residents (2004), winner of the Ralph Bunche award of the American Political Science Association (2005) and the North American Society for Social Philosophy award (2004); Another Cosmopolitanism: Hospitality, Sovereignty and Democratic Iterations, with responses by Jeremy Waldron, Bonnie Honig and Will Kymlicka (Oxford University Press, 2006); Dignity in Adversity. Human Rights in Troubled Times (UK and USA: Polity Press, 2011); Gleichheit und Differenz. Die Würde des Menschen und die Souveränitätsansprüche der Vőlker ( Equality and Difference. Human Dignity and Popular Sovereignty. Bilingual edition in English and German: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), and edited together with Volker Kaul, Toward New Democratic Imaginaries. Istanbul Seminars on Islam, Culture, and Politics (Springer 2016). Her latest book has appeared in 2018 from Princeton University Press, Exile, Statelessness and Migration. Playing Chess with History form Hannah Arendt to Isaiah Berlin.
She is currently at work on a monograph for Polity Press called “At the Margins of the Modern State” and has edited a collection of articles with Ayelet Shachar on Migration and Refugee topics called, Lawless Zones, Rightless Subjects: Migration and Asylum New Border Regimes. (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming)
Her work has been translated into 13 languages (German, Spanish, French, Italian, Brazilian, Turkish, Swedish, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Hebrew, Polish, Japanese, Chinese and Korean) and she has also edited and coedited 10 volumes on topics ranging from democracy and difference to the rights of migrant women and children; the communicative ethics controversy and Hannah Arendt. The volume, Migrations and Mobilities: Gender, Borders and Citizenship (NYU Press, 2009), co-edited with Judith Resnik from the Yale Law School was named by Choice one of the outstanding academic books of the year.
Her most recent books include: The Claims of Culture. Equality and Diversity in the Global Era, (2002); The Rights of Others. Aliens, Citizens and Residents (2004), winner of the Ralph Bunche award of the American Political Science Association (2005) and the North American Society for Social Philosophy award (2004); Another Cosmopolitanism: Hospitality, Sovereignty and Democratic Iterations, with responses by Jeremy Waldron, Bonnie Honig and Will Kymlicka (Oxford University Press, 2006); Dignity in Adversity. Human Rights in Troubled Times (UK and USA: Polity Press, 2011); Gleichheit und Differenz. Die Würde des Menschen und die Souveränitätsansprüche der Vőlker ( Equality and Difference. Human Dignity and Popular Sovereignty. Bilingual edition in English and German: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), and edited together with Volker Kaul, Toward New Democratic Imaginaries. Istanbul Seminars on Islam, Culture, and Politics (Springer 2016). Her latest book has appeared in 2018 from Princeton University Press, Exile, Statelessness and Migration. Playing Chess with History form Hannah Arendt to Isaiah Berlin.
She is currently at work on a monograph for Polity Press called “At the Margins of the Modern State” and has edited a collection of articles with Ayelet Shachar on Migration and Refugee topics called, Lawless Zones, Rightless Subjects: Migration and Asylum New Border Regimes. (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming)
Ayishat Akanbi
![[Ayishat Akanbi]](http://www.bard.edu/wwwmedia/arendt-images/Ayishat.jpg)
It’s widely accepted that everything is political, but it's Ayishat view that much of the personal becoming politicised is helping to fuel tensions.
Through her talks, interviews, and online posts, Ayishat challenges popular ideas by championing understanding, curiosity, and independent thought. Her belief that self-knowledge and honest reflection can resolve divisions has led her to speak at Google Headquarters, The Sydney Opera House, Tate Modern & The Victoria & Albert Museum.
Khaled Furani
![[Khaled Furani]](http://www.bard.edu/wwwmedia/arendt-images/khaled1.jpeg)
Shai Lavi
![[Shai Lavi]](http://www.bard.edu/wwwmedia/arendt-images/shai.png)
He received his Ph.D. from the Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program, University of California Berkeley. His book The Modern Art of Dying: A History of Euthanasia in the United States (Princeton University Press) won the 2006 Distinguished Book Award in sociology of law from the American Sociological Association. He was a Fulbright fellow at the University of Berkeley, California, a visiting professor at Toronto University and at Cardozo Law School, and a Humboldt fellow at the Dubnow Instittue for Jewish History and Culture in Leipzig and at the faculty of law at the Humboldt University, Berlin. He is currently working on medical authority over the body in Germany, Turkey, and Israel. He is a member of the National Bioethics Council. He is also a member on several editorial boards including Law, Culture and Humanities Journal and Critical Analysis of Law.
Deirdre D'Albertis
![[Deirdre D'Albertis]](http://www.bard.edu/wwwmedia/arendt-images/deirdre.jpeg)
Uday Mehta
![[Uday Mehta]](http://www.bard.edu/wwwmedia/arendt-images/Mehta.png)
Roger Berkowitz
![[Roger Berkowitz]](http://www.bard.edu/wwwmedia/arendt-images/berk.jpeg)
His essay "Reconciling Oneself to the Impossibility of Reconciliation: Judgment and Worldliness in Hannah Arendt's Politics," has helped bring attention to the centrality of reconciliation in Hannah Arendt's work. The Arendt Center organizes an annual conference every October. Professor Berkowitz edits the Hannah Arendt Center's weekly newsletter, Amor Mundi. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Bookforum, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Paris Review Online, Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, The American Interest, and many other publications. Berkowitz is the 2019 recipient of the Hannah Arendt Award for Political Thought given by the Heinrich Böll Stiftung in Bremen, Germany.
Leon Botstein
![[Leon Botstein]](http://www.bard.edu/wwwmedia/arendt-images/botstein.png)
He is also music director and principal conductor of The Orchestra Now (TŌN) and the American Symphony Orchestra, artistic co-director of the Bard Music Festival. Botstein is editor of The Musical Quarterly and writes on music and culture. VIEW MORE >>
Leon Botstein has been the President of Bard College since 1975, where he is also the Leon Levy Professor in the Arts and Humanities. He is chairperson of the board of the Central European University and chancellor of the Open Society University Network (OSUN), as well as a member of the Global Board of the Open Society Foundation.
He is also music director and principal conductor of The Orchestra Now (TŌN) and the American Symphony Orchestra, artistic co-director of the Bard Music Festival. Botstein is editor of The Musical Quarterly and writes on music and culture.
He is also music director and principal conductor of The Orchestra Now (TŌN) and the American Symphony Orchestra, artistic co-director of the Bard Music Festival. Botstein is editor of The Musical Quarterly and writes on music and culture.
Jana Mader
![[Jana Mader]](http://www.bard.edu/wwwmedia/arendt-images/mader.jpeg)
Thomas Chatterton Williams
![[Thomas Chatterton Williams]](http://www.bard.edu/wwwmedia/arendt-images/chat.png)
Joseph O'Neill
![[Joseph O'Neill]](http://www.bard.edu/wwwmedia/arendt-images/Screenshot 2024-03-28 at 9.27.12 AM.png)
Fintan O'Toole
![[Fintan O'Toole]](http://www.bard.edu/wwwmedia/arendt-images/003_BenR_180715-2 (1).jpg)
Born in Dublin in 1958, he is a member of the Royal Irish Academy and an honorary international member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He taught at Princeton where was Professor of Irish Letters.
His many books include A Traitor’s Kiss: The Life of Richard Brinsley Sheridan; White Savage: William Johnson and the Invention of America; A History of Ireland in 100 Objects; and Heroic Failure: Brexit and the Politics of Pain.
His most recent book, We Don’t Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Ireland Since 1958 was named Book of the Year in the An Post Irish Book Awards and as one of the ten best books of 2022 by the New York Times.
Jana Schmidt
![[Jana Schmidt]](http://www.bard.edu/wwwmedia/arendt-images/jana.jpeg)
Niobe Way
![[Niobe Way]](http://www.bard.edu/wwwmedia/arendt-images/niobe.jpeg)
Allison Stanger
![[Allison Stanger]](http://www.bard.edu/wwwmedia/arendt-images/Stanger3.jpg)
Lyndsey Stonebridge
![[Lyndsey Stonebridge]](http://www.bard.edu/wwwmedia/arendt-images/Lyndsey Stonebridge_04.jpg)
Yogendra Yadav
![[Yogendra Yadav ]](http://www.bard.edu/wwwmedia/arendt-images/yogendra.jpeg)
Glen Weyl
![[Glen Weyl]](http://www.bard.edu/wwwmedia/arendt-images/weyl.jpeg)
Readings
Suggested Reading List
Suggested Reading List for the Conference: Dive In and Get Inspired!Get ready for a stimulating journey with our conference, "Tribalism and Cosmopolitanism: How Can We Imagine a Pluralist Politics?" To make the most of this event, we've curated a suggested reading list just for you. These readings will provide you with a rich background and deeper understanding of the themes we'll be exploring. Plus, they're a great way to get your intellectual juices flowing before the big event! Here's what the reading list will do for you:
- Enhance Your Experience: Gain insights and context that will enrich your participation in discussions.
- Spark Conversations: Be prepared to engage in lively debates and thoughtful exchanges with fellow attendees.
- Deepen Your Knowledge: Explore the complexities of tribalism and cosmopolitanism through the lens of Hannah Arendt.
- Arendt, Hannah. Continental Imperialism: The Pan Movements In Origins of Totalitarianism. (chapter 8, especially I: Tribal Nationalism), 1951.
- Arendt, Hannah. The Jew as Pariah: A Hidden Tradition. In Hannah Arendt: Jewish Writings. Edited by Jerome Kohn and Ron H. Feldman. 2007.
- Arendt, Hannah. The Jewish State: Fifty Years After, Where Have Herzl’s Politics Lead. In Hannah Arendt: Jewish Writings. Edited by Jerome Kohn and Ron H. Feldman. 2007.
- Benhabib, Seyla. Another Cosmopolitanism. Oxford University Press, 2006.
- Chua, Amy. Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations. Penguin Press, 2018.
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Chapter Seven: Inequality and the Tribal Chasm in America
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Chapter Eight: Democracy and Political Tribalism in America
- Junger, Sebastian. Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging. Twelve, 2016.
- Kant, Immanuel. Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View. In Perpetual Peace and Other Essays. Hackett Publishing Company, 1983.
- Putnam, Robert D. E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century. The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture. Scandinavian Political Studies, vol. 30, no. 2, 2007, pp. 137-174.
- Stonebridge, Lyndsey. We Are Free to Change the World: Hannah Arendt’s Lessons in Love and Disobedience. Hogarth, forthcoming.
Location
Getting Here
![[Getting Here]](http://www.bard.edu/wwwmedia/arendt-images/OLIN2.jpeg)
Accomodations
![[Accomodations]](http://www.bard.edu/wwwmedia/arendt-images/hotel3.jpeg)
Local hotel offering a Bard Rate during the conference:
The Best Western Plus in Kingston, NY. To make reservations using the Bard discount, you must call the hotel direct at 845-338-0400 and ask for the “Bard College Discount.” (20% off) We recommend booking your accommodations as early as possible.
Parking is Free
![[Parking is Free]](http://www.bard.edu/wwwmedia/arendt-images/OlinParking3.jpeg)
Facebook Group
![[Facebook Group]](http://www.bard.edu/wwwmedia/arendt-images/facebook.png)
This event occurs on:
Thu. October 17 – Fri. October 18
Conference takes place in Olin Hall.
Hannah Arendt was suspicious of cosmopolitanism, world government, and the loss of the common sense connections that are part of living with and amidst one's tribe. Wary of assimilation and universalism, Arendt understood the need for a tribe, whether that tribe be her “tribe” of good friends or living amongst people with whom one shares cultural and social prejudices. At the same time, Arendt was also deeply suspicious of tribalism in politics. Politics always involves a plurality of peoples. Thus tribal nationalism—what she called the pseudo-mystical consciousness—is anti-political and leads to political programs aimed at ethnic homogeneity.
Arendt believed that the aspiration of politics is to bind together a plurality of persons in ways that do justice to their uniqueness and yet find what is common to them as members of a defined political community. Wary of the nation-state that would privilege the national community of the state over "foreigners" and "minorities," Arendt nevertheless opposed assimilation into a cosmopolitan sameness. Instead, she held onto a vision of politics centered around plurality and federalism, one in which homelands and regions of like-minded peoples would also live together in federalist republics that both respected the particularity of local identities and sought to build meaningful political bonds that transcend tribal sensibilities. Her plan for a federation in Israel and Palestine imagined Jewish and Palestinian homelands as part of a larger federal structure.
The rise of tribalist and populist political movements today is in part a response to the failure of cosmopolitan rule by elites around the world. As understandable as tribalism may be, the challenge today is to think of new political possibilities that allow for the meaningful commitments of tribal identities while also respecting the fact of human plurality. The Hannah Arendt Center Conference Tribalism and Cosmopolitanism responds to the undeniable fact that tribalism is real, appealing, and dangerous. We ask:
• If humans are tribal beings, how can they live in multicultural liberal societies?
• Are experts and elites themselves simply one tribe defending their self-interests?
• Must social media contribute to the fracturing of society into raging tribes?
• Is there a common interest in society knowable through reason?
•What is a tribe and is it a useful word in our political vocabulary?
•Is there an alternative to the cosmopolitan tribalism of global elites?
Above all, we ask, how can make a space for tribal loyalty and tribal meaning while at the same time maintain our commitment to pluralist politics?
Conference takes place in Olin Hall.
Hannah Arendt was suspicious of cosmopolitanism, world government, and the loss of the common sense connections that are part of living with and amidst one's tribe. Wary of assimilation and universalism, Arendt understood the need for a tribe, whether that tribe be her “tribe” of good friends or living amongst people with whom one shares cultural and social prejudices. At the same time, Arendt was also deeply suspicious of tribalism in politics. Politics always involves a plurality of peoples. Thus tribal nationalism—what she called the pseudo-mystical consciousness—is anti-political and leads to political programs aimed at ethnic homogeneity.
Arendt believed that the aspiration of politics is to bind together a plurality of persons in ways that do justice to their uniqueness and yet find what is common to them as members of a defined political community. Wary of the nation-state that would privilege the national community of the state over "foreigners" and "minorities," Arendt nevertheless opposed assimilation into a cosmopolitan sameness. Instead, she held onto a vision of politics centered around plurality and federalism, one in which homelands and regions of like-minded peoples would also live together in federalist republics that both respected the particularity of local identities and sought to build meaningful political bonds that transcend tribal sensibilities. Her plan for a federation in Israel and Palestine imagined Jewish and Palestinian homelands as part of a larger federal structure.
The rise of tribalist and populist political movements today is in part a response to the failure of cosmopolitan rule by elites around the world. As understandable as tribalism may be, the challenge today is to think of new political possibilities that allow for the meaningful commitments of tribal identities while also respecting the fact of human plurality. The Hannah Arendt Center Conference Tribalism and Cosmopolitanism responds to the undeniable fact that tribalism is real, appealing, and dangerous. We ask:
• If humans are tribal beings, how can they live in multicultural liberal societies?
• Are experts and elites themselves simply one tribe defending their self-interests?
• Must social media contribute to the fracturing of society into raging tribes?
• Is there a common interest in society knowable through reason?
•What is a tribe and is it a useful word in our political vocabulary?
•Is there an alternative to the cosmopolitan tribalism of global elites?
Above all, we ask, how can make a space for tribal loyalty and tribal meaning while at the same time maintain our commitment to pluralist politics?