Kathryn Lawson and Joshua Livingstone (eds), Hannah Arendt and Simone Weil: Unprecedented Conversations – Bloomsbury, February 2024

Hannah Arendt and Simone Weil were two of the most compelling political thinkers of the 20th century who, despite having similar life-experiences, developed radically distinct political philosophies. This unique dialogue between the writings of Arendt and Weil highlights Arendt’s secular humanism, her emphasis on heroic action, and her rejection of the moral approach to politics, contrasted starkly with Weil’s religious approach, her faith in the power of divine Goodness, and her other-centric ethic of suffering and affliction. The writings here respect the profound differences between Arendt and Weil whilst pulling out the shared preoccupations of power, violence, freedom, resistance, responsibility, attention, aesthetics, and vulnerability. Without shying away from exploring the more difficult concepts in these philosophers’ works, Hannah Arendt and Simone Weil also aims to pull out the relevance of their writings for contemporary issues.

Introduction

Part I: Power and Violence
1. Weil and Arendt on the Nature of Power, Lissa McCullough (California State University, USA) 
2. Hannah Arendt and Simone Weil on the Power of Words, Ian Rhoad (American University, USA)
3. Political Violence: A Contradiction in Terms, Rose Owen (University of Chicago, USA)

Part II: Political Evil and Resistance
4. Living in Dark Times: The Seduction of Totalitarian Evil, Marie Meaney (International Theological Institute, Austria)
5. Simone Weil, Humiliation and Epistemic Injustice, Sophie Bourgault (University of Ottawa, Canada)

Part III: Freedom and Attention
6. Attention as a Contested Political Resource: Simone Weil and Hannah Arendt on the Inner Origins of Freedom, Paolo Monti (Università degli Studi di Milano Bicocca, Italy)
7. Tyranny Without a Tyrant: Hannah Arendt and Simone Weil on Bureaucracy, Marina Lademacher (University of Sussex, UK)

Part IV: Action and Aesthetics
8. We Come and Go, the World is Here to Stay: Hannah Arendt’s Political Thought in Action, Elvira Roncalli (Carroll College)
9. The Political Role of Storytelling in the Thought of Simone Weil and Hannah Arendt: Expanding the Conception of the World to What was Invisible, Pascale Devette (Université de Montréal)
10. Beauty and Contemporary Politics in Weil and Arendt, Sara McDonald (Huron University, Canada)

Part V: Responsibility and Vulnerability
11. Finding Refuge in Rootedness: Hannah Arendt and Simone Weil on Subjectivity, Migration, Borders, and Boundaries”, Scott B. Ritner (Temple University, USA)
12. Decreation and Collective Responsibility: The Sketchings of Prison Abolition in Simone Weil and Hannah Arendt, Samuel Elias Sokolsky-Tiff (Purdue University, USA)
13. Politics of Vulnerability: The Meaning of Showing Weakness in Hannah Arendt and Simone Weil, Thomas Sojer (Universität Erfurt, Germany) and Miriam Metze (Universität Regensburg, Germany)