Hannah Arendt
I’d like you to read three short biographical essays about Hannah Arendt so that you can orient yourself to her life and work.
Encyclopedia Britannica – Hannah Arendt
Jewish Virtual Library – Hannah Arendt
Your discussion task: Compare the three biographies. What are the differences in terms of emphasis or focus? Which article gave you the best orientation to Arendt?
REMINDER: if someone has already posted to the forum, and your comment relates to what they’ve said, it’s better to respond to that comment than to start a new thread.
The Lesson of Hannah Arendt
This article from the New York Review of Books gives a good introduction to one of Hannah Arendt’s most important books, The Origins of Totalitarianism:
This is a longish article, but I encourage you to give it a read if you can. Read at the very least the first section (pages 1-4).
One paragraph of the article strikes me as particularly interesting:
Arendt noted the “horrible originality” of the totalitarian movements of her lifetime. But while she believed that the totality of their domination of political and private life was unprecedented, she surmised that the worst was not behind us. “Totalitarian solutions may well survive the fall of totalitarian regimes,” she wrote, “in the form of strong temptations which will come up whenever it seems impossible to alleviate political, social, or economic misery in a manner worthy of man.”
Your discussion task: What did you understand “totatlitarianism” to mean before reading this article? Did reading about Arendt’s work on totalitarianism change your understanding of the term?
REMINDER: if someone has already posted to the forum, and your comment relates to what they’ve said, it’s better to respond to that comment than to start a new thread.
Eichmann in Jerusalem
During the Third Reich, Adolf Eichmann was a member of the SS who worked in that organization’s Jewish affairs branch. During the Second World War he was one of the most important bureaucrats to be involved in the destruction of European Jewry. After the war he assumed a false identity and escaped to South America, where he was kidnapped by the Israeli secret service and tried for his crimes in Jerusalem in the early 1960s.
Hannah Arendt covered the trial as a reporter for New Yorker magazine, and later expanded her five articles on the trial into a book: Eichmann in Jerusalem. A Report on the Banality of Evil. Read this very good account of the book and its importance:
Your discussion task: Kathleen Jones stresses the notion of thinking in Arendt’s work and in her assessment of Eichmann. What role does thinking play in Arendt’s understanding of the Holocaust?
REMINDER: if someone has already posted to the forum, and your comment relates to what they’ve said, it’s better to respond to that comment than to start a new thread.
Judith Butler on the Banality of Evil
Judith Butler is well known as a scholar of literature and culture. On the anniversary of Eichmann’s trial she wrote this article in The Guardian in which she explains Arendt’s concept of the banality of evil.
Hannah Arendt’s challenge to Adolf Eichmann
Your discussion task: Do you agree with Arendt’s concept of the banality of evil? Do you think something similar to the Holocaust could happen today in Canada (or elsewhere)?
REMINDER: if someone has already posted to the forum, and your comment relates to what they’ve said, it’s better to respond to that comment than to start a new thread.
Hannah Arendt – Then . . . and Now
Since the rise of Donald Trump and the resurgence of extreme nationalism in America and Europe, Hannah Arendt’s name has been coming up again and again. I recently saw the following tweet:
I thought any article that requires alcohol might be worth reading, so here it is:
Hannah Arendt: From an Interview
Your discussion task: Why do you think Josh Friedlander recommends drinking after reading excerpts from a 40+ year old interview with Hannah Arendt?
REMINDER: if someone has already posted to the forum, and your comment relates to what they’ve said, it’s better to respond to that comment than to start a new thread.
Interview with Kieran Bonner
Kieran Bonner is a professor of sociology and legal studies at St. Jerome’s University, an institution federated with the University of Waterloo. He is also a leading scholar on Hannah Arendt. I sat down with him in his office to discuss why Hannah Arendt’s works are being sought out in today’s political climate.
Your discussion task: Why do you think Arendt’s work resonates in the age of Donald Trump?
REMINDER: if someone has already posted to the forum, and your comment relates to what they’ve said, it’s better to respond to that comment than to start a new thread.
Specific Instructions for this Review: Arendt
For this review, let’s keep things low key. Simply summarize the main ideas of Hannah Arendt that you think can shed light on or provide insight for living in today’s society.
As always, feel free to make use of the content items in the module and the postings of your classmates when composing your answer.
600-750 words
General Instructions for the Module Reviews
Please keep the following in mind:
- your answer should be uploaded as a Word document. If you don’t have Word, please save your answer as a .docx file in the word processor of your choice.
- your answer should be double-spaced.
- no title page, but there should be a title, your name should appear at the top, and there should be page numbers.
- answers should be within the specified word range.
- good essays have grammatically-correct sentences, coherent paragraphs, no spelling mistakes, and a clear argument or point.
Please note: the question may ask you to make use of the discussions that occurred in the module. There are two modes for viewing the discussion forums, GRID VIEW and READING VIEW. (You can change which you view by clicking on the settings – the gear icon – in the upper right-hand corner of your screen when you’re in the Discussions area of the course.) Play around with the two views to find the setting that works best for you. For example, when I’m reading your discussions during the week and commenting on some of them, I use the READING VIEW, but if I have to read and grade a lot of postings I use the GRID VIEW.