Panel Topic: Hannah Arendt Today: Politics, Literature, Philosophy
December 27-30, 2007
Chicago, IL

Submission Deadline: March 28, 2007

Regarded as one of the leading political philosophers of the twentieth century, Hannah Arendt has recently received increased attention among literary scholars and intellectuals. Part of the reason for this resurgence in interest doubtlessly has do with the way in which Arendt herself displayed an ongoing interest in literature; her book "Men In Dark Times," for example, contains essays on such figures as Hermann Broch, Walter Benjamin, and Bertolt Brecht. In addition, a collection of her articles and reviews have recently been published under the title Reflections on Literature and Culture. At the same time, literature plays a noticeable if subtle role in a book such as "The Origins of Totalitarianism," where Arendt draws upon the writings of Proust, Conrad, and others in order to support her arguments. This panel invites participants to submit proposals on any aspect of Arendt’s writings that address literature or literary language and its relationship to the politica l and philosophical concerns of contemporary theory. Possible topics include: Hannah Arendt as reader and critic; the idea of fiction in Arendt’s political theory; Arendt’s poetics, and their relationship to other modern thinkers (Heidegger and Benjamin, for example); bringing Arendt’s concepts to bear upon the analysis of specific texts. Send 250-400 word proposals to Joshua Robert Gold at jgold8@jhu.edu by March 28, 2007.