Hannah Arendt (1906 – 1975) was a German and American historian and philosopher. She was one of the most influential political theorists of the twentieth century.
Arendt was born to a Jewish family and, after the death of her father when she was seven years old, was raised by her mother and larger family in a politically progressive, secular environment.
She obtained her doctorate in philosophy at the University of Heidelberg in 1929. From Germany she moved to France and then later to the US. She is buried on the Bard campus — and if you ever go to Bard, you can visit her grave.
Her works cover a broad range of topics, but she is best known for those dealing with the nature of wealth, power, fame, and evil, as well as politics, direct democracy, authority, tradition, and totalitarianism. She is, of course, the author of The Origins of Totalitarianism — the text we are looking at this week. It has themes that although they reach back 100 years, seem very contemporary: nation states, war, statelessness, refugees…
Source and further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Arendt#Final_illness_and_death
We’re going to watch a brief introduction to Arendt, from the brilliant Ellie Anderson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NA0JXEzQrZM
Initial Reflection Task
We’re going to do a focussed free write on the reading from Arendt. This is an opportunity to write expansively. This activity encourages expansive, adjacent and creative thinking. There may be a lot of unfamiliar historical material in the text, and you can skip some of this. What we’re interested here is in thinking through the ways the text may speak to us today.
There is no set form to this writing. But you can use some of these guiding questions if they are helpful.
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What did you think of the writing style? Were there any images, phrases or words that you liked? Why? What did they make you think of? Films, art, music? Something totally random? Write about these things.
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How did reading this chapter make you feel? Sad, depressed, confused, something else?
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Any thoughts about Arendt’s ideas in relation to the other texts and theories and thinkers we’ve looked at already during the course?
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Were you confused by any of the ideas or references raised? If so, which ones? Include sentences or phrases from the text to illustrate your thoughts.
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Were there any ideas that you disagreed with? If so, why?
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Did it make you reflect on anything happening in Burma/Myanmar/Elsewhere right now?
Afterwards, we’ll discuss your thoughts in groups.
Major Concepts
Arendt covers a lot of ground in her chapter 9. Here are some of the major concepts:
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Nation states and the “Nation of minorities” (section I)
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Statelessness (section I)
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The Rights of Man (section II) or human rights (section II)
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The concept of “rightlessness” or being without rights. (section II)
Here are some more questions.
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How are these four ideas connected?
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What is Arendt’s overall argument?
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How does this relate to the work we have done on Benedict Anderson?
Discuss this with reference to Arendt’s text!
Homework
You need time off, and you need to rest! No homework for next time!