Public Things, Shared Space, and the Commons

Public Things ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bonnie Honig
Keyword(s):  
Shared Memory ◽  
Hannah Arendt ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Public ◽  
Shared Space ◽  
Long Line ◽  
Lincoln Memorial ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Democratic Societies ◽  
The Human Condition

This epilogue compares the public things model with that of two others, the commons (or undercommons) and shared space. It argues that while all three models respond to the democratic need, public things have their own specific and necessary contribution to make. The Lincoln Memorial is the sort of thing Hannah Arendt has in mind as the basis of shared memory and action in The Human Condition. The commons model identifies the losses caused by dispossession, appropriation, and accumulation, and public things may well look like one more enclosure in a very long line of them. This epilogue discusses the contributions that all three models can make to the project of preventing ever-increasing privatization and promoting justice and equality in contemporary democratic societies.

Hannah Arendt on Eichmann: The Public, the Private and Evil

1984 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shiraz Dossa
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Hannah Arendt ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Human Condition

Since its publication,Eichmann in Jerusalemhas provoked a storm of controversy. With a few exceptions, critics reacted to the substance of Arendt's thesis with considerable bitterness and hostility. This article argues that her detractors badly misunderstood Arendt because they were insufficiently conversant with, or unaware of, her political theory. Fundamental to this theory, articulated at length in herThe Human Condition, is the crucial distinction between the public and the private. None of her critics, including those who sympathized with Arendt, have understood that her critical analysis of Eichmann's conduct and of the response of the Jewish leadership to the tragic fate that befell their people makes sense on the peculiar terrain of her political theory and particularly in terms of the public-private distinction which lies at the core of this theory.

scholarly journals REPENSANDO O ESPAÇO PÚBLICO EM TEMPOS DE PANDEMIA: Hannah Arendt, 60 anos depois de A condição humana

Caderno CRH ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 020019
Author(s):  
Renata Nagamine ◽  
Denise Vitale
Keyword(s):  
Key Words ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Hannah Arendt ◽  
Paper Analysis ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Nous Allons ◽  
Fake News ◽  
The Public ◽  
Vita Activa ◽  
The Human Condition

<div class="trans-abstract"><p>Este ensaio reflete sobre a ideia de espaço público no pensamento de Hannah Arendt, tal como apresentada em A condição humana, elaborando sobre a pandemia de Covid-19, ocorrida no ano de 2020. O artigo a toma como uma experiência que nos convida a pensar as reconfigurações do espaço (e do tempo) olhando para o esvaziamento das cidades, a paralisação da economia, a circulação de notícias falsas e o revigoramento de certas formas de interação. Entendemos que Arendt nos fornece elementos para pensar os desafios postos pela pandemia.</p><p><strong>Palavras-Chave: </strong>Vida Ativa; Espaço Público; Pluralidade; Pandemia; Teoria Política</p></div><div class="trans-abstract"><p class="sec"><strong>RETHINKING THE PUBLIC SPACE IN PANDEMIC TIMES: Hannah Arendt, 60 years after the publication of <em>The human condition</em></strong></p><p class="sec">ABSTRACT</p><p>This paper analysis Hannah Arendt´s concept of public space, as presented on <em>The human condition</em>, drawing on the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper focuses on this experience, which invites us to think about the reconfigurations on space (and time), looking at the emptiness of the cities, the haltof economy, the circulation of fake news and the strength of certain kinds of interactions. Arendt offers good arguments to think the pandemic challenges.</p><p><strong>Key words: </strong>Vita Activa; Public Space; Plurality; Pandemic; Political Theory</p></div><div class="trans-abstract"><p class="sec"><strong>REPENSER L’ESPACE PUBLIC EN TEMPS PANDÉMIQUE: Hannah Arendt, 60 ans après <em>La condition humaine</em></strong></p><p class="sec">ABSTRACT</p><p>Cet essai réfléchit sur l’idée d’espace public dans la pensée d’Hannah Arendt telle que présentée dans <em>La condition de l’homme moderne</em>. Nous allons reprendre les concepts d’Arendt en élaborant sur La pandémie de Covid-19, 2020. L’essai prend la pandémie comme une experience qui invite à réfléchir aux reconfigurations de l’espace (et du temps) enregardant le vidage des villes, la paralysie de l’économie, la circulation de fake news et la redynamisation de certaines formes d’interaction. Nous comprenons que Arendt fournit des elements pour réfléchir aux défis posés par lapandémie et pour imaginer le passage du monde qu’il n’est plus au monde qui n’est pas encore.</p><p><strong>Key words: </strong>Vita activa; Space public; Pluralité; Pandémie; Theorie politique</p></div><p>  </p>

Living machines in our cultural imagination

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Szollosy
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Public Perceptions ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Cultural Imagination ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Future ◽  
Public Imagination ◽  
The Human Condition

Public perceptions of robots and artificial intelligence (AI)—both positive and negative—are hopelessly misinformed, based far too much on science fiction rather than science fact. However, these fictions can be instructive, and reveal to us important anxieties that exist in the public imagination, both towards robots and AI and about the human condition more generally. These anxieties are based on little-understood processes (such as anthropomorphization and projection), but cannot be dismissed merely as inaccuracies in need of correction. Our demonization of robots and AI illustrate two-hundred-year-old fears about the consequences of the Enlightenment and industrialization. Idealistic hopes projected onto robots and AI, in contrast, reveal other anxieties, about our mortality—and the transhumanist desire to transcend the limitations of our physical bodies—and about the future of our species. This chapter reviews these issues and considers some of their broader implications for our future lives with living machines.

Marginalia as narratives of ordinary lives: Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall’s Down to This

2021 ◽  
pp. 002198942098111
Author(s):  
Silvia Julia Caporale-Bizzini
Keyword(s):  
Public Perception ◽  
Life Stories ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Personal Journey ◽  
The Public ◽  
Big City ◽  
The Human Condition

This article examines Canadian author Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall’s 2004 memoir Down to This: Squalor and Splendour in a Big-City Shantytown through the notions of marginalia and the ordinary in order to question dichotomic representations of homelessness. It explores how the author moves beyond binaries, interrogating the dichotomy ordinary/out of the ordinary lives by narrating his ethical encounter with the other (Butler, 2004). The text is written as a journal where Bishop-Stall describes his personal journey through homelessness; and more importantly, it gives a voice to the other down-and-out people in notorious Toronto’s Tent City. The characters’ unreliable and fragmented storytelling uncovers the lives of the faceless others. I contend that in Down to This individuals’ life stories are connected to realities which question binaries through the re/mapping of ordinary experiences and affects; they disintegrate the opposition materiality vs abstraction, or as I argue, exclusion vs inclusion (out of the ordinary/ordinary). Down to These bridges the private details of the residents’ life stories, and the public perception of the problem of homelessness, illustrating how everyday moments of precarity intersect with wider political issues. In the process, the narrative also questions the binary attitudes of exclusion (disfranchisement) and inclusion (privilege). This literary strategy gives the constellation of stories a profound illuminating vision of the human condition. I show my point by drawing on the of marginalia (Kistner 2014), and by analysing the characters’ narratives of precariousness through the notions of editing and affective assemblage (Gerlach, 2015; Hamilakis, 2017).

On Hearing the Daughters’ Call

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-155
Author(s):  
Elva Orozco Mendoza ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Political ◽  
Public Performance ◽  
The Public ◽  
Northern Mexico ◽  
Political Theories ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Maternal Activism ◽  
The Human Condition

This article offers an interpretation of anti-feminicide maternal activism as political in northern Mexico by analyzing it alongside Hannah Arendt’s concepts of freedom, natality, and the child in The Human Condition. While feminist theorists often debate whether maternalism strengthens or undermines women’s political participation, the author offers an unconventional interpretation of Arendt’s categories to illustrate that the meaning and practice of maternalism radically changes through the public performance of motherhood. While Arendt does not seem the best candidate to navigate this debate, her concepts of freedom and the child provide a productive perspective to rethink the relationship between maternalism and citizenship. In making this claim, this article challenges feminist political theories that depict motherhood as the chief source of women’s subordination. In the case of northern Mexico, anti-feminicide maternal activism illustrates how the political is also a personal endeavor, thereby complementing the famous feminist motto.

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