Saturday Reading Group: Hannah Arendt / Karl Jaspers   Saturday Reading Group: Hannah Arendt / Karl Jaspers   January 21 – March 24, 2012 each Saturday at 11 am  Led by Fred Dewey Hosted by Michael Schultze   Hannah Arendt was an unorthodox and groundbreaking thinker. This derived from her treatment of a range of people and concepts in ways counter to their established assessment, focusing on people’s actual conduct and life in terms of their place and history in a shared world. During the summer, Arendt’s relationship to Walter Benjamin and in turn Brecht was examined. For the winter, the topic will be Arendt’s thinking on, and tribute to, Karl Jaspers, former teacher, lifelong interlocutor and friend, one of the first existentialists, and leading philosopher and critic of post-war Germany. Together, Arendt and Jaspers form a paired attempt at building a conscientious retrieval of the highest traditions of thinking and critique grounded in a public, non-academic, world. Jaspers’ principle of “the venture into the public realm” bound him to Arendt, as did his work on the “question of German guilt” and Germany’s effort to refound itself on a more democratic, federal, reasoned, and human foundation. Their friendship fed Jaspers public work and in turn Arendt’s work on Eichmann, the American revolution, reimagining politics from the ground up, and most crucially, thinking’s counter to evil. Arendt’s scandalous notion of evil’s banality emerged from their dialogue. Discussion will build around two crucial essays by Arendt on Jaspers from Arendt’s Men in Dark Times, samples from their correspondence, texts by each reflecting their discussions, and related topics in art and politics, here and abroad. As during the summer, texts will be read out-loud in an open and comprehensive manner as the basis of all discussion. No prior expertise, reading, or academic background is necessary and the gathering may be joined at any point. The reading group meets at General Public on Saturdays at 11 am, is open and free, and is conducted by Fred Dewey, a writer, activist, and curator based in Los Angeles and Berlin.   In case of questions regarding the Reading Group please drop us an e- mail or feel free to call +49 (0) 176 211 55 834  > January 21, 2012   <- Back to: Discourse/Presentations
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