Politics as Endurance: Hannah Arendt and the Three Deaths of Being
Date
2014-08-29
Authors
Orr, Steven Ray Shadbolt
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Abstract
This thesis examines Hannah Arendt's vita activa in the context of the contemporary political world that is marked by the inclusion of a variety of beings beyond mere human plurality. Understanding that Arendt's work is in opposition to the isolating tendencies of philosophical and bureaucratic thought, I look to the processes of labor and work as methods by which togetherness and worldliness can be recovered. Beginning with Richard Sennett's The Craftsman and Vanessa Lemm's Nietzsche's Animal Philosophy, I draw out a common thread in projects that consider non-human actors as capable of politicking: endurance. Building upon Arendt's work in The Human Condition and On Violence, I suggest that the vita diutina, the enduring life, and the three deaths of being serve as a useful ways of understanding already ongoing political projects that include non-human beings.
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Keywords
Hannah Arendt, excluded bodies, endurance, violence, political theory, worldliness, memory, vita activa