“The Political Theory of Hannah Arendt: The Problem of Evil and the Origins of Totalitarianism” is a five-week school teacher seminar for sixteen participants to study three major works by political theorist Hannah Arendt. Professor Kathleen Jones leads a seminar focusing on political theorist Hannah Arendt to consider topics such as terror, evil, violence, and democracy, because in a “post-9/11 world, Arendt’s wisdom seems more germane than ever.” Before coming to the seminar, participants are expected to read Elizabeth Young-Bruehl’s biography of Arendt. The seminar opens with a discussion of Arendt’s life and then follows with “perhaps the most disconcerting of the three Arendt texts,” Eichmann in Jerusalem. The Origins of Totalitarianism, a dense, historical work, is taken up next; challenging in its own right, this work locates “the origins of terror and ideology within Western democratic societies.” After participants immerse themselves in Arendt’s understanding of history and politics as it unfolds in The Origins of Totalitarianism, they explore related issues in The Human Condition, the most theoretical and the last work to be considered. Guest presenters include Ange-Marie Hancock (University of Southern California), Danielle Celermajer (University of Sydney), and Roger Berkowitz (Bard College). The seminar takes place on the campus of Bard College, home to the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and the Humanities, an important destination for scholars and writers interested in Arendt.
