Desk, Home, Arendt

Dear Reader,

For the past six years my desk has faced this window. And today, with the help of some very good people, I packed it up and stored it away.

When I finished emptying out the drawers, all that remained was this thumb drive of Hannah Arendt’s archive that I used while writing the biography.

I decided to slip the thumb drive into my pencil case. A portable reminder of the past six years. And now, as I prepare to embark on a long research and writing trip, I find myself thinking about this passage from Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino:

Arriving at each new city, the traveler finds again a past of his that he did not know he had: the foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer possess lies in wait for you in foreign, unpossessed places.

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The Collected Poems of Hannah Arendt are slated for spring 2023.

The first poem that appears in Hannah Arendt’s notebooks, though, is from Emily Dickinson. Here’s an image of Arendt copying it out by hand:

Up Life's Hill with my little Bundle
If I prove it steep—
If a Discouragement withhold me—
If my newest step

Older feel than the Hope that prompted—
Spotless be from blame
Heart that proposed as Heart that accepted
Homelessness for Home

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Thinking is Dangerous

In coordination with the Thinking is Dangerous Project at the Goethe Institut and Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, Harper Collins has generously agreed to offer a 20% discount on Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism, The Life of the Mind, and On Violence until May 31st. Code: ARENDT

And The University of Chicago Press is offering a 30% discount on all Arendt titles with the promo code: ARENDT

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Class

• Join me on Sunday afternoons in May for a course on Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research.

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Walk

I am leading one last walk of Hannah Arendt’s New York City in person on Sunday April 24th at 1pm.

RSVP here.

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I hope you have a lovely week!

Sam