Arendt's Disappointments and Our New Beginnings: Citizenship and Democracy Reimagined

by Peter Iver Kaufman

Overview

Hannah Arendt’s recurring disenchantment with conventional political discourses, protocols and practices led her to redefine politics and recommend alternative public realms. Her repeated emphases on freedom, plurality (or pluralism), critique, agonistic exchanges, natality (or new beginnings), equality and the virtuosity of citizen-statesmen, contribute to a reimagination of democracy that bears on current crises facing political progressives. Arendt was ambiguous at times, yet invariably discerning, prescient and radical. Her adaptation of the pariah’s perspective allowed her to proffer telling analyses of her times and, strangely, of ours.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781399534086
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	04/30/2025
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Peter Iver Kaufman is Professor Emeritus at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and, since 2008, Professor and George Matthews and Virginia Brinkley Modlin Chair at the University of Richmond.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Preface

Introduction: Arendt on Being Political

1. Salesmanship and Statesmanship: Arendt’s ‘Acute Awareness of Political Finitude’

2. Nationalism and ‘Non-thinking’: Arendt on Parvenus, Pariahs and Philosophers

Interlude: ‘The Onslaught of Modernity’

3. Arendt’s Hints at How to Begin

4. Arendt Suggests Where and Where not to Begin

5. Why Arendt’s ‘New’ Makes Sense Now

Conclusion: Arendt on Controlling the New

Abbreviations
Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

Kaufman reinvigorates Arendt’s thought to offer a bold reimagining of democracy for our age. Through insightful critique and passionate scholarship, this work challenges readers to embrace citizenship anew, pushing beyond disillusionment to realize Arendt's enduring vision of freedom and collective responsibility in a fractured political landscape. Essential for our times!

Jana Mader