A scholar of postcolonial, global, and migration studies, Kim shared archival discoveries about Arendt’s first visiting professorship at UC Berkeley in 1955 and discussed how her encounter with the changing educational landscape in Cold War America transformed her work as a political theorist.
Arendt quickly discovered that American public universities, in the midst of rapid growth in student population, differed radically from the German university system in which she was educated prior to the rise of National Socialism. Arendt’s time in Berkeley changed her understanding of how education mediates a knowledge of the world to a new generation and redefined her ideas about the political role of writers and public intellectuals.
Kim’s lecture is part of research project organized by Michael McGillen on Arendt’s Histories, the results of which will be published in a forthcoming special journal issue.