Ausgabe 2, Band 13 – August 2024
Report on the seminar Conjugating the Present. Words inherited from Hannah Arendt and the public debate Hannah Arendt: Thinking in company.
Montserrat Espinosa
The
international seminar Conjugating
the Present. Words inherited from Hannah Arendt
took place at the CCCB Barcelona on November 30 and December 1, 2023.
The seminar was co-organized by Matias Sirczuk (Professor of
Political Theory at the University of Buenos Aires - CONICET -
Argentina / María Zambrano postdoctoral researcher at the
University of Barcelona), the Seminari de Filosofia i Gènere,
ADHUC Centre de Recerca Teoria, Gènere, Sexualitat and the
CCCB in collaboration with the International Consortium of Critical
Theory Programs.
Throughout
these days, some of the most renowned experts on Hannah Arendt's
thought examined and discussed the political and philosophical
potential of her insights and her way of approaching political
experiences which have proven essential in addressing contemporary
problems and imagining alternative and creative responses to today’s
political challenges. Some
of these political challenges included reflections on
Another point of dialogue was Evil, ethics, and politics. With The Origins of Totalitarianism in mind and sharing with Arendt the urgency to understand our own context, Claudia Hilb reflected on those unprecedented political events that seem incomprehensible to us due to the insufficient political, moral, and legal resources from the past. There could be a temptation to seek “ultimates” (the dialogue between Arendt and Jonas came to mind). Paraphrasing Derrida, who considered the present as both a gift and a poison, Hilb pointed out that the lack of “ultimates” can be too. Simona Forti, while rethinking power and evil today, and the failure of political philosophy as an explanatory tool, suggested that rather than discarding concepts, we need to continuously revisit them. Rather than getting rid of a term that has reached us from political tradition, we must try to think about it differently. An example of this could be “totalitarianism” when we distinguish it as a political event and as a political concept. Following these ideas, Fantauzzi pointed out the validity of the Arendtian approach to reality, which eschews metaphysical explanations and instead engages with experience and reality as they are perceived to avoid reducing events to theories. To further this reflection, Vega revisited the conversation between Arendt and Jonas, who believed that "ultimates" were necessary for politics, recalling Arendt’s utter pessimism because this would mean that new gods were about to rise.
On violence and
action
The last dialogue was about Loss and World. In it, Rosaura Martínez addressed the theme of political action and history; with the assistance of certain psychoanalytic categories, suggested that action also requires narration to reveal its meaning. Martínez states that stories not only provide meaning but also direction: the organization of memory is always in dispute, and agency can be lost if it is not narrated. The only outcome of action is history and narrative. Zeynep Gambetti focused not so much on the loss of agency as on the loss of world, understood not as artworks or things that preserve the memory of events, but as the objects that surround us, the bare material reality, trying to go beyond capitalism that determines our relationship with things in consumer relations. We must rethink the material in its uniqueness because the Thingness is different from the Whatness, things are both material and relational. This panel was enriched with commentaries provided by Debaditya Bhattacharya and Judith Butler who, in addition to making specific remarks about the previous presentations, contributed with a series of insights but, due to time constraints, could not be addressed in greater depth.
* * *
As part of this international seminar, the public event Hannah Arendt: Thinking in company took place at the CCCB Hall on the afternoon of Thursday, November 30. Simona Forti, Zeynep Gambetti, and Linda Zerilli, with the moderation of Matías Sirczuk, discussed the relevance of Arendtian questions such as What are the new forms of contemporary evil? How can we recover the creative capacity of imagination and judgment in a scenario that collapses into precariousness? Sirczuk invited them to commit to giving continuity to the never-ending task of understanding the world and overcoming the strangeness of a present that does not allow itself to be decoded. In this endeavor, each of them narrated her own story with Arendt, her recovery of Arendt’s political intuitions and notions. However, they agreed that above all, they have strived to keep her as a companion in their thoughts because that was her great legacy: she provides clues, but above all, she teaches us how to think, how to let ourselves be touched by reality and to confront the shock of the present, without sheltering ourselves in concepts, and to take the risk of speech.
The recording of the public debate Hannah Arendt: Thinking in company is available at the CCCB website.
Simona Forti, Zeynep Gambetti, Linda Zerilli, Matías Sirczuk. November 30, 2023.
List of Participants at the seminar:
Linda Zerilli
Fina Birulés
À. Lorena Fuster
Marta Segarra
Claudia Hilb
Simona Forti
Martine Leibovici
Peg Birmingham
Matías Sirczuk
Zeynep Gambetti
Judith Butler
Rosaura Martínez Ruiz
Debaditya Bhattacharya
Stefania Fantauzzi
Facundo Vega
Maria Robaszkiewicz,
Máriam Martínez-Bascuñán
List of Participants at the public debate:
Simona Forti
Zeynep Gambetti
Linda Zerilli
Matías Sirczuk (moderator)