Lyndsey Stonebridge and Samantha Rose Hill

In recent years, Hannah Arendt’s work has been revived in attempts to understand some of today’s political crises, among them the decline of liberal democracy, the spread of fake news, and loss of the private sphere with the irruption of social networks. Her writings are challenging as they invite readers to engage in critical thinking which—like Arendt herself—resists being swayed by predominant ideological trends, and they advocate personal responsibility in combatting the dangers of totalitarianism and dehumanisation of politics.

Taking their respective biographies as a starting point, Stonebridge and Hill will speak about how Arendt defied the rise of totalitarianism with free thinking. Samantha Hill Rose is author of the biography Hannah Arendt (Reaktion Books, 2021 and, in Spanish, Báltica Editorial, 2023) and Lyndsey Stonebridge has recently published We Are Free to Change the World: Hannah Arendt’s Lessons in Love and Disobedience (Jonathan Cape, 2024 – in Spanish, Somos libres de cambiar el mundo. Pensar como Hannah Arendt, Ariel, 2024). Both authors coincide in their view that Hannah Arendt holds out a model of critical thinking for confronting the present and as a spur to protect the world and human plurality with a commitment that requires rebelling against established inertias.