Hannah Arendt research

The Portable Hannah Arendt was the first comprehensive anthology of Arendt’s writings to be published. Since editing that volume, I have investigated various aspects of Hannah Arendt’s work and legacy: principally, Hannah Arendt’s critique of the social sciences and her debates with, and rebuttals by, prominent social scientists. Raymond Aron, David Riesman and Jules Monnerot provided critical rejoinders to Hannah Arendt’s theory of totalitarianism. Robert Nisbet, a sociologist Hannah Arendt respected, also sparred with her. Aside from this work, my research has focused on particular aspects of Hannah Arendt’s corpus: notably, her theory of the “masses,” her appraisal of Max Weber, her analysis of American ex-Communists, and the extent to which Hannah Arendt’s theory of totalitarianism can be applied to the Maoist experiment in China. While The Portable Hannah Arendt was an anthology of her writings, and Hannah Arendt, Totalitarianism, and the Social Sciences was a singe authored study of her critique of sociology and kindred disciplines, The Anthem Companion to Hannah Arendt, which will appear in 2015, is a commissioned collection of essays by social scientists on her ideas. An unusual feature of this collection, unlike the Cambridge Companion to Hannah Arendt, is that it is written by social scientists, as distinct from philosophers, literary theorists, and political theorists with little knowledge of sociology.

References:
  1. The Anthem Companion to Hannah Arendt (editor and contributor), New York: Anthem Books, forthcoming 2015. 
  2. "The Informers: Hannah Arendt’s Appraisal of Whittaker Chambers and the Ex-Communists," European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology 45 (1), 2014, pp. 84-102. 
  3. Hannah Arendt, Totalitarianism and the Social Sciences (Author), Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010, pp.221.
  4. "China the Anomaly: Hannah Arendt, Totalitarianism and the PRC," European Journal of Political Theory, (9:3), 2010, pp. 267-286.
  5. “Identifying the Unprecedented: Hannah Arendt, Totalitarianism and the Critique of Sociology,” American Sociological Review 67:6, 2002, pp. 804-831.
  6. “The Grammar of Prudence: Arendt, Jaspers and the Appraisal of Max Weber” in Steven Aschheim (ed.), Hannah Arendt in Jerusalem (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001, pp. 306-324, (endnotes on 407-416).
  7. The Portable Hannah Arendt, (Editor), New York: Penguin, 2000; 2nd ed. 2003, pp. 576 + lxii.