New NYC Walking Tour Explores Life of Philosopher Hannah Arendt

New York, NY — It has been 70 years since renowned 20th century philosopher Hannah Arendt — a Holocaust survivor best known for her theories about power, evil, authority and totalitarianism —published her seminal work, The Origins of Totalitarianism.

Arendt’s works are now more popular than ever. In fact, in 2017, The Origins of Totalitarianism was #4 on Amazon’s bestseller list, and many books have been published recently about the life and thoughts of this prominent intellectual.

Now, those who are interested in Arendt’s life and work can now learn more about her in a self-guided walking tour created by the Goethe-Institut, which takes visitors to various locations in the Upper West Side of Manhattan where Arendt lived from 1941, when she arrived from Europe as a stateless refugee, to 1975, when she died.

Samantha Rose Hill, author of the new book Hannah Arendt, will be leading a one-time guided version of the walking tour on March 27. The tour is free to attend but reservations are required and the tour is limited to 25 people.

After March 27, the tour will be available as a self-guided walk on the Gesso app, featuring Hill’s narration. The self-guided audio tour can be downloaded from Gesso on their website (https://gesso.fm/) or through their mobile app at the Apple Store or Google Play.

The tour includes stops at:

• The Soldiers and Sailor’s Monument in Riverside Park
• 317 W. 95th St., the tenement building where Arendt lived when she first arrived from Europe
• Butler Library on Columbia University’s campus
• 130 Morningside Dr., Arendt’s second apartment, where she met with some of the most illustrious thinkers of the 20th century
• 370 Riverside Dr., Arendt’s third apartment in New York City, where she threw famous parties
• Riverside Park, where she often came to sit and watch people

In addition, to the tour, the Goethe-Institut is also launching an seven-episode podcast series entitled “Hannah Arendt: Between Worlds,” exploring Arendt’s life and philosophy, which is available to listen at https://www.goethe.de/ins/us/en/kul/wir/tid/hab.html as well as all podcast providers such as Apple and Spotify.

In each episode, Hill joins a leading intellectual to discuss Arendt’s philosophies and their enduring legacy, touching on everything from freedom to privacy, friendship, the art of listening, what counts as political, and what it means to be a citizen in the world today. The guests include novelists Ken Krimstein and Madeleine Thien; composer Dylan Mattingly; Anita L. Allen, a professor of law and philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania; architect Hans Teerds; artists Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock; and Jerome Kohn, the literary executor of Arendt’s estate.

The podcast is a co-production of the Goethe-Institut and the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research.

ABOUT THE HOST

Samantha Rose Hill is a senior fellow at the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities and associate faculty at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research and the University of the Underground. She was formerly the assistant director of the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College. She is the author of Hannah Arendt (2021) and Hannah Arendt’s Poems (forthcoming 2022), and her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, LitHub, OpenDemocracy, Public Seminar, and Contemporary Political Theory and Theory & Event.

ABOUT GOETHE-INSTITUT

The Goethe-Institut promotes knowledge of the German language abroad and fosters international cultural cooperation, conveying a comprehensive image of Germany by providing information about cultural, social and political life in our nation. The Goethe-Institut’s cultural and educational programs encourage intercultural dialogue and enable cultural involvement, strengthening the development of structures in civil society and fostering worldwide mobility.