Thinking with Hannah

Confronting Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism, while we can.

A 16-week correspondence course for citizens and non-citizens
(basically anyone contending with a nation-state)

"In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true."

—Hannah Arendt

Written in the aftermath of Nazi Germany, The Origins of Totalitarianism is brilliant excavation of the conditions that make ordinary people susceptible to totalitarian movements—conditions that feel unnervingly familiar. Arendt's analysis of how atomized individuals become participants in their own oppression speaks directly to our current political moment.

But few understand the personal crucible from which this work emerged. As a young Jewish woman in Germany, Arendt had an intense intellectual and romantic relationship with Martin Heidegger, the philosopher who would become a Nazi apologist. Their letters reveal how Arendt came to understand the psychology of collaboration and complicity with devastating clarity.

Through her seminal work, her correspondence with Heidegger, and some of her poetry, we will trace the development of her analysis about how entire populations surrender freedom.

All communication through letters sent by mail.

1/31 - 5/25

Was $450 - Now $350

Why a correspondence course in the digital age?

Do you long to have thoughts not inspired by an algorithm? Has our hyperconnected world left you feeling disconnected from your own mind? Resist the culture of perpetual distraction: Engage with authors and their ideas as the form intends: slowly, deliberately, and personally. Also you don't have smile.

Sign me up

How This Class Works

Read

Buy the book. Read 50 pages a week, plus the essays, letters, excerpts, and/or poems I will mail you along with questions to start the conversation. Read at the speed of understanding. Mark passages that spark something. Let questions percolate. Carry ideas with you through your week.

Write

Respond to my questions and explore your own thoughts. Write by hand if you can. But however you compose, let your thinking unfold in real time. Second guess yourself, revise ideas without revising text. Nothing has to be perfect. Invest in the beautiful messiness of ideas in formation. Mail me your responses by the end of the week.

Reinvigorate

You'll receive my response in return, creating a genuine correspondence between minds. Together, through this inherited tradition of letter writing, we will grow ideas slowly, thoughtfully, and with the kind of attention that our accelerated world makes nearly impossible to sustain.

Register for This Class

Fill out this expression of interest form and I'll send you the details for how to register.