Reading Hannah Arendt for the 21st Century

Three great lectures on the work of Hannah Arendt and her importance as we move deeper into the 21st century. These come from the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. Below the links is a brief introduction to her life and work from the Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

I have only read one of her books - The Human Condition - but I would like to read The Life of the Mind.

Reading Hannah Arendt for the 21st Century

• Elisabeth Young-Bruehl (Columbia University), "The Promise of Hannah Arendt's Politics": April 1, 2010 (Audio | Time: 01:18:31 - 35.9 Mb)

• Richard Bernstein (The New School), "Immanence, Plurality, and Politics": April 1, 2010 (Audio | Time: 01:12:35 - 33.2 Mb)

• Susannah Gottlieb (Northwestern University), "Reflections on Ruin" : April 1, 2010 (Audio | Time: 01:13:34 - 33.7 Mb)

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Hannah Arendt

First published Thu Jul 27, 2006

Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) was one of the most influential political philosophers of the twentieth century. Born into a German-Jewish family, she was forced to leave Germany in 1933 and lived in Paris for the next eight years, working for a number of Jewish refugee organisations. In 1941 she immigrated to the United States and soon became part of a lively intellectual circle in New York. She held a number of academic positions at various American universities until her death in 1975. She is best known for two works that had a major impact both within and outside the academic community. The first, The Origins of Totalitarianism, published in 1951, was a study of the Nazi and Stalinist regimes that generated a wide-ranging debate on the nature and historical antecedents of the totalitarian phenomenon. The second, The Human Condition, published in 1958, was an original philosophical study that investigated the fundamental categories of the vita activa (labor, work, action). In addition to these two important works, Arendt published a number of influential essays on topics such as the nature of revolution, freedom, authority, tradition and the modern age. At the time of her death in 1975, she had completed the first two volumes of her last major philosophical work, The Life of the Mind, which examined the three fundamental faculties of the vita contemplativa (thinking, willing, judging).

There is a huge page devoted to her and her work at the site.

Tags: Philosophy, culture, Politics, pluralism, Reading, Hannah Arendt, 21st Century, Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, Richard Bernstein, Susannah Gottlieb, Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, political philosophers, The Life of the Mind, The Human Condition, The Origins of Totalitarianism