Hannah Arendt and Education: Renewing Our Common World

287 Pages·2001·22.31 MB·English

by  Mordechai Gordon

Hannah Arendt and Education
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Hannah Arendt
and
ucation
Renewing Our Common Wor
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
A11 rights reserved, Printed in the: Unitcd Statcs of America. No part of this pubficatiotl may be:
reproduced or trar~smittedi n any form or by any meaxls, etecrrot~ico r mechanical, including
photocopy, recording, or any infc~rmations torage and retrieva) system, witbottt per~ni~sioinn
svriting from the publisher,
Copyright 43 2001 by Westview Press, A :Member of the Perseus Books Group
Published in 2001 in the United States of America by Wesmiew Press, ,5500 Central Avenue,
Boulder, Cotorado 80301-2877 and in the United Kingdom by Westview 13ress, 12 Hid's
Copse Road, Gumnor Hill, Oxford OX2 9Jj
Find us on the World Wide Web at www.westvicwpres~.corn
Library of Congress Catalogirlg-ill-fjublicatian Lhta
Hannab Arendt and education : renewing our cornmon svorld / edited by Mtjrdechai Ciordon.
p, cm.
Xncl~zdesb ibliographical references and ii~dcx.
ISBN 0-81 33-6632- 1 XSBN 0-8233-3964-2:f pbk.)
----
1, Arendt, Hannah-View on education. 2. Education-Philos~phy. I, Ciordon,
Mordecl~ai
The paper used in this publication meets the requirertxentrr of the Aineriran National Srandard
fur Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials 2,,29,48-1984,
For my daughter
JULI A,
and for
CABRIELA,
who has helped me renew
a ~ollzmw~o~rzld ,
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Cont ents
1 The Paradox of Nata[ity: Teaching in
the Midst of Belatedness, Natasha Levinson
2 Hannah Arendt on Authority: Conservatism in Edttcation
Reconsidered, l'vlordechai Gordon 37
3 Education for Jttdgment: An Arendtia~zO xymoron?
Stacy Smith 67
4 Contesting Utopianism: Hannah Arendt and
the Tensions of Democratic Ed~cationA, aron Schutz 93
5 Mulc.z'cultgfralE ducation and Arendtian Conservatisnz: On
Memory, Historical Injury, and Our Sense of the Common,
Kimberley Curtis
6 Is Hannah Arendt a Mul~z'c~~z.tttllitralAZsnt?n Lane
7 Hannah Arendt on Politicizing the University and
Other CEichks, Peter Euben
8 The Eclipse of Thinking: An Arendtian Critique of
Cooperative Learning Ed uardo Duarte
9 What and How WE Learned from Hannah Arendt:
An Exchange of Letters, EIisa beth Young- Bruehl and
Jerorne Kohn 225
Foreword
Since I began teaching educational philosophy, Hannah Arendt's
work has given rise to what I conceive to be the most significant
themes in my professional life. They have been interwoven, it is
true, with some of John Dewey's ideas and certain fundamental ex-
istential preoccupations, particularly those of Maurice Merleau-
Ponty. But Arendt's notions of thought and thoughtlessness, her
emphasis on the necessity to "stop and think" at moments of deci-
sion, and her linking of human freedom to action in a public space
have opened (and continue to open) for me a great range of per-
spectives on the "common world" and on the education that might
bring it into existence and keep it alive. Because of all that, I wel-
come this rich and many-faceted book. As its editor makes cleal;
the connections between education and politics are explored as
never before in this field. So are the relations between Arendt" nn-
tions of natality, tradition, and authority and what happens in col-
leges and universities.
Reading these thoughtful and often critical essays, I cannot but re-
call the class I once took with Hannah Arendt on "History of the
Will." I remember her free associations as she wrote a quotation
from Cicero on the blackboard, followed by one from Dostoyevsky
and another from Faulknec We were often present to a demonstra-
tion of what Dr. Gordon so well describes as tradition viewed as "a
series of innovations, itself full of breaks and fissures and the kinds
of reinventions that the young can make." Pondering this notion of
tradition and its implications for education, I have continually re-