olitical thinkers of the twentieth century. Her books influenced the development of modern political theory, particularly in North America, Europe, and Australia, where scholarly conferences and subsequent anthologies have been devoted to her work (as well as a dozen other books and numerous dissertations). In 1975, the Danish government awarded Arendt its Sonning Prize for Contributions to European Civilization, which no American and no woman before her had received.
A variety of political thinkers with widely divergent positions have made use of Arendt’s thought, including participatory democrats such as Benjamin Barber and Sheldon Wolin, communitarians such as Sandel and MacIntyre, and neo-Kantians such as Habermas, Albrecht Wellmer, Richard Bernstein, and Seyla Benhabib.
Arendt was a pioneer in the academic world; she became the first woman to become a full professor (of politics) at Princeton University, and subsequently taught at the University of Chicago, Wesleyan University, and finally the New School for Social Research.
Arendt's emphasis on the plight of the Jews amid the decline of the Enlightenment ideal of human rights, and her insistence that the Third Reich was conducting a war against the Jewish people, have become common themes of Jewish historiography.
Although Arendt emphasized the examination of “appearances” of political action rather than philosophical theory, her own theory was detached enough from the everyday political reality to provoke a number of criticisms.
Her reliance upon a rigid distinction between the 'private' and 'public'—the oikos and the polis,—to delimit the specificity of the political realm, has raised criticisms from feminist and Marxist thinkers that her definition of the ‘public’ realm, as pertaining to human self-disclosure in speech and deed, excludes domestic matters and problems of the distribution of material resources, which are legitimate political concerns.
Her emphasis on direct citizen deliberation, as synonymous with the exercise of political freedom, excludes representative models, and might be considered unworkable in the context of modern mass societies. The elevation of politics to the apex of human good and goals has also been challenged, since it subordinates the status of other modes of human action and self-realization.
All links retrieved August 6, 2016.
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