Reading Hannah Arendt with Roger Berkowitz

Special Webinar: Revitalizing Democracy: Sortition, Citizen Power, and Spaces of Freedom Part I

The crisis facing democratic regimes today is cause for serious concern; it is also an opportunity for deep reflection on questions and assumptions concerning liberal representative democracy. Instead of assuming a defensive posture and taking up arms to defend the status quo, our conference asks: how can we revitalize our democracy?

 

This event took place October 16th, 2020 and featured David van Reybrouck, Hélène Landemore, and Roger Berkowitz.  Click here to learn more.

The Amor Mundi Podcast Episode 11: Masha Gessen

In the latest Amor Mundi Podcast, Roger Berkowitz and Masha Gessen talk about how even amidst the rise of subjectivism and the internalization of the world—what Hannah Arendt calls world alienation—there has remained a commitment to a common or shared world. Yet, it is precisely that common world that today seems endangered, and Gessen asks how language is used in anti-political ways to undermine the world we share. If the common world is shattered, the question is whether a new story can be told and constituted to rebuild a common world. Berkowitz and Gessen ask: What would it mean in the wake of both the Trump Presidency and the Black Lives Matter Movement to retell the American story? But is the story of America the unfulfilled story of the Langston Hughes, that America has not yet lived up to its promise? Is it the story of competent management and technocracy? Or is it the story of decentralized and local government, a humbler and more anarchic amalgamation of plural and different people who come together around an embrace of freedom? Touching on the importance of hypocrisy, the rise of the masses, and the perils of bi-partisanship, Gessen and Berkowitz embrace politics as a conversation, the attempt to figure out how we live together. 

Amor Mundi Podcast Special Series, Thinking the Plague: Revitalizing Democracy Through Citizen Assemblies.

This is episode 10, “Revitalizing Democracy Through Citizen Assemblies.” It features the Arendt Center's Founder and Director Roger Berkowitz and Jonas Kunz, co-founder of the Bard Institute for the Revival of Democracy Through Sortition, giving a talk and leading a discussion over Zoom. The talk was organized by Lawrence Davis-Hollander and the Scoville Memorial Library and took place on Saturday, April 18, 2020.

Podcast editing and music by Andy Evan Cohen. Additional narration by Janet Bentley.
Illustration by Grant Barnhart.

The Amor Mundi Podcast Special Series, Thinking the Plague: The Rule of Nobody

This is episode 9, “The Rule of Nobody,”  It features the Arendt Center's Founder and Director Roger Berkowitz in a Zoom conversation with Philip K. Howard, lawyer and activist. Howard has written five books including “The Death of Common Sense” and “The Rule of Nobody,” a reference to Hannah Arendt’s description of bureaucratic rule.  He also started Common Good, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization which advocates simplifying government.

Amor Mundi Podcast Special Series, Thinking the Plague: How to Think About Change

Amor Mundi Podcast Special Series, Thinking the Plague: The Thrill of Democracy

This is episode 7,”The Thrill of Democracy.”  It features the Arendt Center's Founder and Director Roger Berkowitz in conversation with Olivia Guaraldo, a political thinker, Professor of Political Thought, and Director of the Hannah Arendt Center at the University of Verona in Italy.   

 

Podcast editing and music by Andy Evan Cohen. Additional narration by Janet Bentley.
Illustration by Grant Barnhart.

Amor Mundi Podcast Special Series, Thinking the Plague: Thinking in Dark Times

This is episode 6,”Thinking in Dark Times.”  It features the Arendt Center's Founder and Director Roger Berkowitz and Samantha Hill, Assistant Director of the Hannah Arendt Center, in a wide-ranging conversation about thinking during the time of the plague. 

 

Podcast editing and music by Andy Evan Cohen. Additional narration by Janet Bentley.
Illustration by Grant Barnhart.

Amor Mundi Podcast Special Series,Thinking the Plague: Looking in the Mirror

This is episode 5,” Looking In the Mirror.”  It features the Arendt Center's Founder and Director Roger Berkowitz in conversation with Jerome Kohn, a political thinker, the literary executor for Hannah Arendt,  and the editor of many volumes of Arendt’s posthumous works including “Thinking Without a Bannister,” “The Jewish Writings,”  “Essays in Understanding,” and Responsibility and Judgment.” Jerry Kohn was Hannah Arendt’s last research assistant while a graduate student at the New School for Social Research. Both Kohn and Berkowitz were jointly awarded the Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thinking by the Heinrich Böll Foundation and the City of Bremen in 2019. 

 

Podcast editing and music by Andy Evan Cohen. Additional narration by Janet Bentley.
Illustration by Grant Barnhart.

Amor Mundi Podcast Special Series,Thinking the Plague: Living with Honor

Roger Berkowitz discusses the world as it is now with Uday Mehta, Distinguished Professor at City University of New York.

Episode 3: Twilight of the Gods with Antonia Grunenberg

A talk delivered at the Hannah Arendt Center, November 25, 2019, on Walter Benjamin‘s project of founding a political metaphysics in secular times – and Hannah Arendt‘s answer