POL 390 - The Human Condition

This course undertakes a systematic study of Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition (1958), both in its own terms and as a portal into the history of the modern West. We will examine the book’s architecture, along with its conceptual apparatus: earth and world alienation; the vita activa and vita contemplativa; the conditions of natality, mortality, and plurality; the activities of labor, work, and action; the realms of public, private, and the social. We will explore the contexts Arendt invokes-including the ancient world and early modern science-as well as those she doesn’t. That is, we will read in light of Arendt’s own experience: as a German emigre in Cold War America, writing in the shadow of the Nazi death camps and the atom bomb; witnessing the expansion of the welfare state, the acceleration of automation, and the launch of Sputnik. Finally, we will locate the work intertextually, critically assessing Arendt’s readings of Marx, Heidegger, and others.

Unit(s): 1
Group Distribution Requirement(s): Distribution Group II
Instructional Method: Conference
Grading Mode: Letter grading (A-F)
Cross-listing(s): HIST 343
Not offered: 2023-24
Group Distribution Learning Outcome(s):

Evaluate data and/or sources.
Analyze institutions, formations, languages, structures, or processes, whether social, political, religious, economic, cultural, intellectual or other.
Think in sophisticated ways about causation, social and/or historical change, human cognition, or the relationship between individuals and society, or engage with social, political, religious or economic theory in other areas.