HeyJaredReading Hannah Arendt with Roger Berkowitz
This podcast offers close readings of Arendt’s books alongside engaging interviews and thought-provoking conversations in the spirit of Hannah Arendt, who thought loving the world means neither uncritical acceptance nor contemptuous rejection, but the unwavering facing up to…
- Indexed episodes, last 90 days
- 8
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- Sep 11, 2026
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- Jul 10, 2026
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Prologue | The Human Condition (opens the original)
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We're onto our new read, Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition (1958). Host Roger Berkowitz calls the book a meditation on “thinking what we are doing” as modern science transforms the modern world. In this close read of the prologue, he distinguishes the “modern age” (the scientific revolution from the 17th to early 20th century) from the “modern world” inaugurated by the atomic bomb, Sputnik, automation, and today’s AI, and introduces Arendt’s twofold alienation: world alienation (the Cartesian
Identity, Embodiment, and Politics with Nikita Nelin '09 | Bonus Episode (opens the original)
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In this bonus episode, host Roger Berkowitz speaks with writer and somatic coach Nikita Nelin '09 about identity, embodiment, and politics. Nelin describes his grandfather, who pursued acting only after being told to “take off the combat boots,” a metaphor for shedding protective armor that later constrains life. Connecting this to his coaching, Nelin contrasts bodily “compression” and exhaustion he saw in clients after the 2024 election with the “armoring up” response of 2016, and argues for pe
Hannah Arendt's Unwritten Chapter on Judging with Samantha Fazekas | Bonus Episode (opens the original)
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Roger Berkowitz speaks with Samantha Fazekas about her book Hannah Arendt’s Unwritten Chapter on Judging (De Gruyter Brill, 2025). Fazekas argues that judging became central for Arendt as she confronted unprecedented political events like World War II, the Holocaust, and the Eichmann trial, which “explode” inherited moral and political categories. They discuss Arendt’s use of Kant’s aesthetic reflective judgment—subjective yet claiming universal validity—as a model for political judgment, emphas
Home to Roost | Responsibility and Judgment (opens the original)
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Host Roger Berkowitz closes our discussion of Hannah Arendt’s Responsibility and Judgment with her final public speech, “Home to Roost” (1975), presented as Arendt’s last assessment of the crisis of the U.S. republic. He highlights her claims that republics are fragile, that McCarthyism began a constitutional crisis by attacking due process and the civil service, and that Vietnam, foreign-policy failures, domestic turmoil, and Watergate signaled a swift decline of political power. Arendt warns a
The Deputy & Auschwitz on Trial | Responsibility and Judgment (opens the original)
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Focusing on two essays from Responsibility and Judgment—Arendt’s 1964 review of Rolf Hochhuth’s play The Deputy and her 1966 introduction to Bernd Naumann’s Auschwitz on Trial—podcast host Roger Berkowitz traces Arendt’s insistence that judgment be grounded in understanding individuals and contexts. Arendt critiques Pope Pius XII’s “rigid adherence to normality” and failure to mobilize moral authority while warning against personalizing outrage in ways that obscure broader collaboration. In the
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