Reading with Hannah Arendt : Literature, Criticism, Theory

One of the first books to examine Hannah Arendt’s work by putting it in conversation with a series of literary works from writers such as Melville, Brecht, Conrad, and Sarraute, this book addresses the main puzzles of Arendt’s work and offers nuanced and innovative analyses of her strengths and shortcomings.

Hannah Arendt is one of the major political thinkers of the last century, and recently, scholars have started to engage with her relevance for the humanities. To date, though, her work has not been theoretically explored with a particular focus on literary and cultural studies. This book fills this gap by examining the relevance of Arendt’s writings for 21st-century literary studies. It asks questions like: What could an Arendtian approach to literature mean? Can we establish a dialogue between Arendt’s engagements with literature and her political thought? Can a rereading of Arendt’s writings and imagined conversations between Arendt and her 21st-century interpreters inspire new, Arendtian readings of literary texts?

Revisiting some of Arendt’s own discussions of literature, this book explores her own engagements with the practice of storytelling to extend, complicate, and challenge some of the contemporary arguments on the significance of narratives. It also reads Arendt against Arendt, demonstrating her enduring relevance for 21st-century literary scholarship.