The Hannah Arendt Center At Bard College Launches Inaugural Edition Of Annual Journal, HA

By Mel Fabrikant Monday, February 04, 2013 This month, the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College launches the inaugural edition of its annual journal, HA: The Journal of the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities at Bard College. Advancing the Arendt Centers mission to elevate public discourse by nurturing humanities-based thinking about politics in the spirit of Hannah Arendt, the journal HA publishes the best essays and talks from the centers annual conference, blog, events, and lectures. The inaugural issue is a double issue, covering the themes of Truthtelling and Human Being in an Inhuman Age from conferences held during the previous two academic years. It includes the essays Word Order by Lewis Lapham (editor of Laphams Quarterly and former editor of Harpers Magazine), Democracy and Untruth by George Kateb (William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics Emeritus at Princeton University), and Is Lying a Political Virtue? by Uday Singh Mehta (distinguished professor of political science at CUNY). The journal also includes an In Memoriam section on Lotte Khler, Hannah Arendts friend, secretary, and literary executor; and Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, Arendts former student and biographer. This limited-edition journal is available to members of the Arendt Center and is not currently being sold separately. For more information about how to become a member, please contact Bridget Hollenback, director of Outreach, at 845-767-7878 or arendt@bard.edu. Or visit: www.hannaharendtcenter.org HA offers smart, nonpartisan thinking about politics that is smarter than the debate. Its essays all began life as oral lectures and maintain the accessibility and openness of a conversation. We founded HA to appeal to curious and engaged citizens whether or not they have read Hannah Arendts books. And we made it look beautiful. Books today must attract us and draw us in. The first issue of HA is a feast for the eyes and the mind.Roger Berkowitz About the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College

The Hannah Arendt Center at Bard is a unique institution, offering a marriage of nonpartisan politics and the humanities. It serves as an intellectual incubator for engaged thinking and public discussion of the nations most pressing political and ethical challenges. Public discourse is the bedrock of our democracy. Amid the cacophony of media pundits and the proliferation of thinktanks, the Hannah Arendt Center is singular in its approach: we address politics free from the jostling over policy. The Arendt Center offers an institutional space for passionate, controversial, yet nonpartisan thinking that reframes and deepens the fundamental questions facing our nation and

our world. In the spirit of Hannah Arendt, the Centers mission is to encourage people to think what we are doing. About Hannah Arendt

Hannah Arendt is the leading thinker of politics and the humanities in the modern era. No other scholar so enrages and engages citizens and students from all political persuasions, all the while insisting on human dignity, providing a clear voice against totalitarianism, and defending freedom with extraordinary intelligence and courage. Writing for both a scholarly and a lay audience from deep within the humanities tradition, Arendt bequeathed us the idea of the banality of evil, insisted that facts be held protected from the corrosive force of opinion, and called us to the highest ideal of political citizenship. She is that rare writer who compels her readers to think and rethink their most fundamental ethical and political convictions.