Seminar Description

Seminar Format

Participants will be welcomed with an informal dinner on Sunday, June 28. Regular seminar meetings will take place in a seminar room on campus four times per week, Monday through Thursday, from 1:00-4:00 PM, beginning June 29. For each meeting we will discuss specific selections from the readings relevant to the topics assigned. I expect you to keep journals of your responses to and queries about the readings, and to use these in our meetings to generate discussions. After the first week, I will schedule one participant to use her/his entries as the basis for leading discussion and dialogue on the day's topics. I would like you to prepare a list of questions, with references to specific pages in the text, which prompted them, and distribute these to your colleagues on the day before you lead the discussion. I will schedule time to meet with each of you individually at the beginning of the seminar, and will be available to consult with you on topics of interest throughout the summer.

Because the seminar covers topics in the political theory, as well as political and social history, I have invited two colleagues of mine to share their expertise with us. Danielle Celermajer will join us from the Department of Sociology of the University of Sydney, Australia, where she directs an innovative master's degree program in human rights. Author of The Sins of the Nation and the Rituals of Apology . Cambridge University Press (New York and Cambridge, forthcoming) and co-editor of Hannah Arendt and the Dilemmas of Humanism , Cambridge Scholars Press (forthcoming) she will present a lecture on arendt's conception of the right to have rights. Later in the summer, Sandra Luft, author of Vico's Uncanny Humanism: Reading the New Science Between Modern and Postmodern , (Cornell University Press, 2002), will present her work on Arendt's theory of action and its resonance with Vico's philosophy.

In addition to participating in the close reading of and discussions about the primary texts, each participant will be expected to write a short critical, but creative essay/presentation on a theme related to the main topics raised by our common texts. We'll let Arendt be a model for us. She was a public intellectual who believed in the importance fostering critical thinking about public life. Her essays appeared in the leading intellectual journals of her time. So, be imaginative in creating the form as well as the content of your “essay.” By all means, make this an opportunity to experiment and be creative!

or instance, you might decide to explore topics covered in the seminar through debates, dramatic presentations, different genres of literary writing or film. Or perhaps you'll create a multi-disciplinary presentation on connections between Arendt's work and contemporary politics. I encourage group projects. Former participants have designed art works, written curriculum and lesson plans, personal essays, and poetry, using Arendt as inspiration. This shouldn't be a chore, but an opportunity to share your creative responses to the reading with your colleagues.