Dear Reader,
This week, one of my favorite archival documents: Hannah Arendt’s FBI file.
I was reminded of it this week as I was going through Arendt’s syllabuses looking at the materials she used for her course on Totalitarianism in 1955 at the University of California, Berkeley.
Based on The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), Arendt’s class focused on the final section of the book, which she was revising.
In 1958 Arendt added, “Ideology and Terror,” as a new conclusion, looking at the character of totalitarian domination, and the relationship between loneliness, isolation, and the loss of freedom.
And in 1956, one concerned parent reported Hannah Arendt to the FBI for teaching the course.
Mr. X advised he felt that HANNAH ARENDT was very dangerous to the best interests of this country in view of the fact she is a professor who travels around in the United States instructing at numerous colleges as a visiting professor. He stated his daughter changed her thinking completely after taking courses from HANNAH ARENDT at the University of California at Berkeley, in California, in 1955, and feels that it was her influence which had influenced his daughter to go to Europe to study under Professor Paul Ricœur. Mr X advised that from all the information he had been able to gather, he could not say that HANNAH ARENDT was a Communist, but stated that she was advocating a totalitarian philosophy in her political courses.
Arendt’s case was closed because it did not warrant an active investigation.
Which reminds me of one of my favorite teaching moments, when a student jumped up in the middle of the class and shouted: “I just realized I don’t have to agree with what we’re reading.” A good reminder that just because somebody studies or teaches something, it doesn’t mean they subscribe to it.
"Ideologies are never interested in the miracle of being."
— Hannah Arendt
Last week I had the pleasure of talking with D.N. Rodowick about reading Hannah Arendt now at The American Library in Paris. We talk about writing, judgment, and Putin’s war on Ukraine.
Until Wednesday,
Sam
Nous parlerons cette semaine avec mes élèves d'Idéologie et terreur. Merci d'avoir raconté cette histoire, je ne m'en souvenais pas.