Hannah Arendt on anti-Black racism, the public realm, and higher education

Datos Bibliográficos

ID8858013
AutoresBrian Smith (0000-0002-6523-2019, Nazarbayev University, autor de correspondencia)
Año2021
Volumen54
Número12
Páginas2054-2071
Fecha de publicación2021-09-15
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaEducational Philosophy and Theory (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0013-1857 • E-ISSN: 1469-5812
EditorialTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00131857.2021.1978071
OpenAlexW3199543430
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas20

In recent years, a growing number of scholars have accused Arendt of anti-Black racism. Some of these criticisms can be traced to certain passages in her essay On Violence about black radicals making what she believed to be unreasonable curriculum demands, namely the establishment of Black Studies programs. The purpose of this paper is to contextualize these controversial passages within her deeply anti-modern thinking about the role of higher education in society. While her arguments remain troubling, when read along with the critical perspectives of Max Weber and Karl Jaspers, it becomes clear that her essential criticism had mostly to do with the transformation of the university into a capitalist enterprise, where students had become customers essentially seeking glorified vocational degrees. For Arendt, the university should not be a means of employment or another branch of the US military, as it had so become. It was a space where one could escape the public realm and discover a kind of freedom, the life of the mind

Criticism · Curriculum · Epistemology · Pedagogy · Political science · Racism · Realm · Sociology · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Gender Studies · Hannah Arendt's Political Philosophy · Law · Philosophy · Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, and Politics