The New York Institute for the Humanities at New York University will host “Hannah Arendt Right Now,” Sat., Dec. 2 and Sun., Dec. 3 at NYU’s Cantor Film Center (38 E. 8th Street, at University Place). The conference is free and open to the public, which may call 212.998.2100 for more information.

The New York Institute for the Humanities at New York University will host “Hannah Arendt Right Now,” Sat., Dec. 2 and Sun., Dec. 3 at NYU’s Cantor Film Center (38 E. 8th Street, at University Place). The conference is free and open to the public, which may call 212.998.2100 or email ms1386@nyu.edu for more information. Reporters interested in attending the event should contact James Devitt, Office of Public Affairs, at 212.998.6808 or james.devitt@nyu.edu. For a complete schedule of sessions, go to www.nyu.edu/fas/nyih. The event is co-sponsored with the Humanities Council at NYU and the Hannah Arendt Organization.

This year is the centennial of the birth of Arendt, the German-Jewish émigré political philosopher (1906-75), student of Heidegger and Jaspers, seminal theorist of totalitarianism, and controversial chronicler of the Eichmann Trial (and the banality of evil) and of the crises of Vietnam-era America. Conference participants include the following: Rony Brauman, founding director emeritus of Doctors Without Borders, The Specialist; novelist Walter Mosley; Azar Nafisi, the Iranian author of the best-selling Reading Lolita in Tehran; Samantha Power, who won the 2003 general non-fiction Pulitzer Prize for The Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide and wrote an introduction to the new edition of Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism; Jonathan Schell, who has written about Hannah Arendt in many of his books as well as in his columns for The New Yorker and The Nation; Margarethe von Trotta, the German director who, along with screenwriter Pam Katz, is developing a feature film centering on Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem; Elisabeth Young Bruehl, Arendt’s student and biographer (For Love of the World); and Kanan Makiya, Iraqi exile, democratic activist, and author of Republic of Fear and Cruelty and Silence.

  • Who: Rony Brauman, founding director emeritus of Doctors Without Borders; novelist Walter Mosley; Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran; Pulitzer-Prize winner Samantha Power; journalist Jonathan Schell,; German director Margarethe von Trotta; and others
  • What: Conference-“Hannah Arendt Right Now”
  • When: Sat., Dec. 2 (10 a.m.-4 p.m. and 7 p.m.-10 p.m.); Sun. Dec. 3 (10 a.m.-1 p.m.)
  • Where: NYU’s Cantor Film Center (38 E. 8th Street, at University Place) [Subway Lines: R, W (8th Street); 6 (Astor Place)]

EDITOR’S NOTE
The New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU was established in 1976 for promoting the exchange of ideas among academics, professionals, politicians, diplomats, writers, journalists, musicians, painters, and other artists in New York City-and between all of them and the city. It currently comprises 190 fellows. Throughout the year, the NYIH organizes numerous public events and symposia.

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