The Political Theory of Hannah Arendt: The Problem of Evil and the Origins of Totalitarianism

FAIN: FV-50217-09

San Diego State University Foundation (San Diego, CA 92182-1931)
Kathleen B. Jones (Project Director: March 2009 to January 2012)

Funding details:
Original grant (2009) $140,812.00
Supplement (2010) $10,000.00

A six-week school teacher seminar for sixteen participants on the political theory of Hannah Arendt.

During this seminar we will study intensively several key works by the political theorist, Hannah Arendt. These works shed light on the problem of evil and the use of terror in the contemporary age, and provide a philosophical perspective on current debates about the use of violence to settle political conflicts, about the conditions of democracy, and about the scope and importance of human rights. Based on the success of my 2006 and 2008 seminars on Arendt with schoolteachers, who responded powerfully to the relevance of Arendt to their own thinking and teaching, and the advance interest I have received for my 2009 seminar, I propose to repeat the seminar in 2010 with a few modifications.