Adriana Cavarero
Hannah Arendt and Public Happiness
Debate
Adriana Cavarero vindicates the joy of participating in collective life as the “hidden treasure” of politics. The philosopher talks with Fina Birulés and Elena Laurenzi on Hannah Arendt.
The pandemic era has interfered with the experience of public happiness: an emotion that Hannah Arendt identifies with the “taste for freedom”, and that comes from participating and interacting, as equal and at the same time different people, in a single shared space. Adriana Cavarero, one of the leading voices in contemporary philosophy, reflects on this central idea from Arendt’s thought, an experience that requires the necessary proximity of bodies, congregation and coming together, as happens during peaceful demonstrations in public squares or in meetings to discuss the common good. In dialogue with the work of the Jewish-German thinker, Cavarero highlights the importance of this meeting of bodies, which actually takes place during the initial, generative phases of revolutions: specific moments in participatory democracy that allow for the rediscovery of the “hidden treasure” of politics.
Adriana Cavarero will participate by videoconference. Elena Laurenzi will substitute Lorena Fuster.
This lecture is part of the course Hannah Arendt. Between Understanding and Action, organised by the Institut d’Humanitats de Barcelona.
Participants: Adriana Cavarero, Fina Birulés,
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Adriana Cavarero
Hannah Arendt and Public Happiness
Adriana Cavarero vindicates the joy of participating in collective life as the “hidden treasure” of politics. The philosopher talks with Fina Birulés and Elena Laurenzi on Hannah Arendt.