Hannah Arendt and Political GloryEarthly Immortality in an Age of Superfluousness
£24.99
About this book
Offers a systematic account of the notion of political glory in Hannah Arendt’s work
- Reposes the problematic of a secular, earthly immortality
- Proposes a new form of political solidarity with the murdered, expelled and those still being produced as superfluous
- Critiques the modern concept of history that renders factual truth superfluous and which has led to our ‘post-truth’ world
- Presents a new secular trinity that replaces the Roman trinity of tradition, religion and authority
In this book, Peg Birmingham argues that privileging the event of natality and new beginnings in Hannah Arendt’s political thought overlooks her central problematic with the modern and contemporary production of economic and political superfluousness, treating all life and the earth itself as disposable.
In the face of this unrelenting production, that will not stop until it has destroyed all worlds and the earth itself, Birmingham shows that Arendt's primary concern is with radically rethinking the Greek notion of immortality and its heroic glory as earthly immortality. This is rooted in a new form of universal solidarity with those who have been produced as superfluous and consigned to holes of oblivion at sea, desert crossings, prisons and camps.
Reviews
Peg Birmingham’s original and masterful study of Hannah Arendt revolutionises our interpretations of Arendt’s project. Scholarship to-date largely focuses on the generative concepts of natality and the new as creating political possibilities, but these readings overlook contemporary forms of superfluousness—a key concern for Arendt. Birmingham shows how Arendt’s thought focuses instead on earthly immortality, and it is within this framework that multiplex forms of contemporary superfluousness can be resisted and combatted. New forms of solidarity and political affect arise. This book is unquestionably a game-changer. Birmingham single-handedly shifts how we are to understand and read Arendt.
Hannah Arendt and Political Glory is a powerful work of critical political thought. Peg Birmingham challenges the received view that Arendt was primarily interested in the human condition of natality and new beginnings. This concern, she argues, only makes sense in the context of Arendt's broader worry about the unrelenting production of "superfluousness," the condition that places human and non-human life under the threat of imminent annihilation. Action in concert is a call for solidarity with those who have been targeted for elimination through consignment to various “holes of oblivion." Birmingham captures the sheer urgency of Arendt's unique voice for facing and resisting the reality of our political present. A tour de force.
Hannah Arendt and Political Glory demonstrates [a] careful reading and creative deployment of Arendt’s work, especially with regard to the concepts of superfluousness and political glory. [...] In the present moment, characterized by worry about the future of the planet and a broadened acknowledgment of economic and political failures, readers will appreciate Birmingham’s call for solidarity, which remains faithful to Arendt’s goals. In addition to those working in philosophy, readers hailing from social theory, political theory, and historiography will benefit from this book. It will be of great interest to those studying global development, human rights, political violence, and secularization.
Summing Up: Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty.
Table of contents
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: Rethinking Glorious Immortality
PART ONE
Chapter 1 Superfluousness, Radical Evil, and the Death of Immortality
1. Imperialism and the Production of Superfluousness
2. Extreme Superfluousness and Holes of Oblivion
3. Precarity and Superfluousness: Butler and Arendt on Eichmann’s Banality
Chapter 2. The Superflousness of Factual Truth and the Problematic of Historical Immortality
1. A Mutation in the History of the Lie: “Lying the Truth”
2. Historical Immortality in the Modern Age
3. Arendt and Benjamin: Reposing the Problem of Historical Immortality
Chapter 3. The Vita Activa: Earthly Immortality in an Age of Superflousness
1. Arendt’s Critical Diagnosis of the Modern Age
2. Arendt’s Phenomenology of Appearances: Recovering the Sensus Communis
3. The Vita Activa and Earthly Immortality
a. The Life of Labor: The Fecundity and Regeneration of Life
b. The Life of the Homo Faber: The Endurance of the Kalon
c. The Life of Political Action: Bearing Untimely Beginnings
Intermezzo: Arendt’s Disavowal of Economic Superfluousness
PART TWO
Chapter 4. Revolutionary Immortality: Sacralized Violence. Secularization, and Glory
1. Hobbes and Rousseau: Sacralized Violence and Immortal Glory
2. Revolutionary Violence, Secularization, and the Problem of Authority
3. The Council System: Revolutionary Immortality without Sovereignty or Glory
Chapter 5. Immortal Affects: The Pathos of Earthly Endurance
1. A Phenomenology of Appearance: The Double Sensus Communis
2. Arendt’s Complicated Heart
3. Superfluous Sentiments: Forsaking Worldly Reality
4. Immortal Affects: A New Form of Solidarity
Conclusion: Politics without Glory: Potential Earthly Immortality
Bibliography
Index