Table Of ContentArendt and Adorno
Arendt and Adorno
polit ic a l a nd philosophic a l
in v est ig at ions
edited by
Lars Rensmann and Samir Gandesha
stanford university press
stanford, california
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
© 2012 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University
Press.
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Arendt and Adorno : political and philosophical investigations / edited by
Lars Rensmann and Samir Gandesha.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–8047–7539–7 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 978–0–8047–7540–3 (pbk : alk. paper)
1. Arendt, Hannah, 1906–1975. 2. Adorno, Theodor W., 1903–1969. 3. Political
science—Philosophy. 4. Philosophy, Modern —20th century. I. Rensmann, Lars,
editor of compilation. II. Gandesha, Samir (Samir Suresh), 1965– editor of compilation.
JC251.A74A75 2012
320.5—dc23
2011037323
Contents
Preface vii
Contributors ix
1. Understanding Political Modernity: Rereading Arendt
and Adorno in Comparative Perspective
lars rensmann and samir gandesha 1
part one political modernity, theory,
and philosophy
2. Arendt and Adorno: The Elusiveness of the Particular
and the Benjaminian Moment
seyla benhabib 31
3. Political Modernism: The New, Revolution,
and Civil Disobedience in Arendt and Adorno
j. m. bernstein 56
4. From the Critique of Identity to Plurality in Politics:
Reconsidering Adorno and Arendt
dana villa 78
5. Passion Lost, Passion Regained: How Arendt’s
Anthropology Intersects with Adorno’s Theory
of the Subject
dieter thomä 105
part two legacies of totalitarianism,
antisemitism, and crimes
against humanity
6. Grounding Cosmopolitics: Rethinking Crimes Against
Humanity and Global Political Theory
with Arendt and Adorno
lars rensmann 129
vi contents
7. Debating Human Rights, Law, and Subjectivity:
Arendt, Adorno, and Critical Theory
robert fine 154
8. Blindness and Insight: The Conceptual Jew in Adorno
and Arendt’s Post-Holocaust Reflections
on the Antisemitic Question
jonathan judaken 173
9. The Paralysis of Judgment: Arendt and Adorno
on Antisemitism and the Modern Condition
julia schulze wessel and lars rensmann 197
part three political theory in exile,
exile as a theoretical paradigm
10. Theorists in Exile: Adorno’s and Arendt’s Reflections
on the Place of the Intellectual
dirk auer 229
11. Homeless Philosophy: The Exile of Philosophy
and the Philosophy of Exile in Arendt and Adorno
samir gandesha 247
Notes 281
Index 347
Preface
Hannah Arendt and Theodor Adorno were undoubtedly among the most in-
fluential political theorists and philosophers of the twentieth century. And yet
despite the enormous impact the work of these two contemporaries has had on
political and social theory, philosophy, and the humanities more generally, this
is the first book in English that takes a comparative look at both authors. This
has been a long time coming. But the book would not have seen the light of day
without the cast of outstanding scholars supporting our project and contribut-
ing to this volume. We owe a special debt of gratitude to them for their willing-
ness to present original work in this volume—work cutting incisively across the
rigid theoretical boundaries that have existed for far too long. We thank them,
additionally, for the enormous generosity of spirit and forbearance they have
shown in the face of many, often unexpected, delays. It is our hope that this
volume will open the space for many more such studies that seek to compare,
explore, and critically appropriate, not only Arendt’s and Adorno’s work, but
also the profound intellectual traditions they embody.
This book is, in more ways than one, a collaborative project. It is a product
of several years of the editors’ joint work on Arendt and Adorno and of many
fruitful discussions between them. In no small measure, the volume has ben-
efited hugely from the intellectual and institutional environments in which it
developed, environments without which long-term commitments to projects
are simply not possible. We thank Simon Fraser University’s Institute for the
Humanities, which is approaching its thirtieth year, and the University of
Michigan, in particular its Department of Political Science, for funding and
institutional support, and for providing the kind of extraordinary spaces and
communities in which our work could take hold and flourish.
We are also very grateful to graduate students at both institutions for
their feedback in seminars on Hannah Arendt and on the Frankfurt School.
The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), which generously
viii preface
co-funds Rensmann’s position at the University of Michigan, has supported
the production of this book in countless ways; so has the Moses Mendels-
sohn Center at the University of Potsdam, where he is a Permanent Fellow.
The generous support of the Alexander Humboldt Foundation, which made
possible Gandesha’s extended stay in Germany in 2001–2, has also played a
critical role in making this project possible, as has the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada. The authors are also grateful for
support from the Simon Fraser University Publications Committee.
To a considerable extent, the book owes its existence to the support and
encouragement of wonderful colleagues and friends, many of them at our re-
spective universities, who shared their ideas, pushed us to think in new direc-
tions, read all or some of the chapters and were crucial in helping us finish the
book. They can take credit for whatever merits this book may possess but not
the responsibility for any of its shortcomings, which are ours alone. Special
thanks are owed to Ian Angus, Seyla Benhabib, Stephen Eric Bronner, Lisa
Disch, Andrew Feenberg, Malachi Haim Hacohen, Donald Herzog, Mar-
tin Jay, Jennet Kirkpatrick, Mika LaVaque-Manty, Anne Manuel, Andrei S.
Markovits, Christoph Menke, Douglas Moggach, Charles Reeve, Mark Rig-
stad, Arlene Saxonhouse, Elizabeth Wingrove, Richard Wolin, Jerry Zaslove,
and Mariah Zeisberg. We are particularly grateful to our acquisitions edi-
tor at Stanford University Press, Emily-Jane Cohen, for her unwavering and
relentlessly energetic support at every step of the way and her extraordinary
work with us over the years, and to assistant editor Sarah Crane Newman,
whose careful and diligent work made everything easier. We owe special
thanks to Peter Dreyer for meticulous copy editing, and to production editor
Tim Roberts. It’s really hard to overstate the role they had in making this
book happen. We are sure that in this difficult climate for academic publish-
ing, our experience is far from typical.
We would like to thank a number of graduate students who helped
in countless ways on this project, among them Andrew Bingham, Adela
Muchova, Dennis Nattkemper, and Natalie Wing. We also thank Thomas
Murphey for his insightful comments, and we owe special thanks to Su-
zanne Hawkins, who was instrumental to helping us bring the manuscript
together at the end, and who contributed most of the index.
Last but not least, we owe gratitude to our respective families, whose
presence and support mean the world to us, Rachia van Lierop, Ruby and
Milan Gandesha, and Ina and Samira Klingenberg. We could not have
done it without them.
Contributors
dirk auer is a freelance journalist and sociologist with Balkanbiro in Sofia,
Bulgaria, and a former lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Insti-
tute for Sociology and Social Research, University of Oldenburg, Germany.
His publications include Politisierte Demokratie: Richard Rortys politischer
Antiessentialismus (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2004),
Die Gesellschaftstheorie Adornos, with Thorsten Bonacker and Stefan Müller
Doohm (Darmstadt: Primus, 1998), and Arendt und Adorno, edited with
Lars Rensmann and Julia Schulze Wessel (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2003).
seyla benhabib is Eugene Meyer Professor of Political Science and Philoso-
phy at Yale University and a former president of the Eastern Division of the
American Philosophical Association. Her many books on political theory
and philosophy include Critique, Norm and Utopia: A Study of the Founda-
tions of Critical Theory (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), The
Reluctant Modernism of Hannah Arendt (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Little-
field, 2003), The Rights of Others: Aliens, Citizens and Residents (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2004), winner of the Ralph Bunche Award of
the American Political Science Association, and Another Cosmopolitanism
(New York: Oxford University Press 2006). She is also the author of dozens
of scholarly articles and the editor of many books, including most recently
Migrations and Mobility: Gender, Borders and Citizenship (New York: New
York University Press, 2009) and Politics in Dark Times: Encounters with
Hannah Arendt (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011).
j. m. bernstein is University Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the
New School for Social Research. His books include Against Voluptuous
Bodies: Late Modernism and the Meaning of Painting (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 2007), Classic and Romantic German Aesthetics (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), Adorno: Disenchantment and
Ethics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), and Recovering
