Nooha Sabanta Maula, Lecturer of the School of General Education at BRAC University, recently attended Hannah Arendt Humanities Network (HAHN) Annual Text Seminar titled “Arendt and/on Race” in Kingston, New York.
The event was organized by the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities of Bard College, one of the institutions of the Open Society University Network (OSUN), including BRAC University.
The seminar brought together 12 participants, including prominent Arendtians as well young scholars, from across the globe to understand Hannah Arendt's framing of race and racism across her writings. The aim was to publish a volume titled “Reading Hannah Arendt on Race” on the model of the volume Artifacts of Thinking: Reading Arendt’s Denktagebuch, which came out of an earlier seminar.
In preparation for the event, participants were asked to read the texts from the seminar reader, which included many of Arendt's most prominent work on the topic (from The Origins of Totalitarianism, On Violence, “Reflections on Little Rock,” the letters to Ellison and Baldwin, Introduction into Politics and some Jewish Writings). These readings were compiled on the basis of selections made by the participants, who were tasked with leading the close reading of the selections in conversation with other works of Arendt as well as those of her interlocutors and critics. The seminar permitted all participants the opportunity to engage with various interpretations and contemporary applications of Arendt's political theories.
The seminar was divided into three thematic areas across each day: Antisemitism/Racism and the Stranger; Little Rock: Political, Pre-political and Private; and Origins and the Postcolony. Maula presented under the Origins and the Postcolony, leading a discussion on the absence of a vernacular of race in Bangladesh by incorporating local political concerns with selections of passages highlighting Arendt's framing of nationalism, settler colonialism and the role of race in maintaining socio-political status quo. The participants included Roger Berkowitz, Professor of Political Studies and Human Rights and Academic Director, Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities, Bard College; Jana Schmidt, Director of Academic Programs, Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities; Michael Weinman, Visiting Assistant Professor Comparative Literature, Indiana University Bloomington; Neil Roberts, Chair and Professor of Africana Studies, Williams College and Bard College and Open Society University Network Research Professor in Political Studies; and J D Mininger, Provost, American University in Bulgaria, among others.
The Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities has published a video on the event on their YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/1_a11KAso4U