"No one has the right to obey." — Hannah Arendt

When hope is a hindrance For Hannah Arendt, hope is a dangerous barrier to courageous action. In dark times, the miracle that saves the world is to act | by Samantha Rose Hill (@samantharhill.bsky.social) aeon.co/essays/for-a... #Arendt #hope #philosophy #philsky#PhilosophySky

And the follow-up point is that because imperialism requires constant expansion, it is inherently incompatible with stable political institutions. It causes and relies on political instability at home. Not unrelated to unaccountable state actors shooting citizens in the street.

Hannah Arendt’s point in Imperialism was that there is no end to imperialism. It goes on and on. The nation-state is rooted in imperialism and imperialism is rooted in expansionism. Trump is doubling down on 19th-century nation-state politics, and doing the once quiet part aloud.

When you order wood in a small French village and they leave it at your door

“That’s a suspicious amount of books.” 22 years of notebooks in one suitcase

Friedrich Nietzsche, For the new year:

City Lights has long been a beacon of bookishness for me. It was a thrill to do CITY LIGHTS LIVE!: a conversation about close reading with Yael Segalovitz and my co-editor on Close Reading for the 21C, @johannawinant.bsky.social moderated by @samantharhill.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehZ0...

look, when the legendary City Lights asks to record a conversation about close reading, you respond “yes, I’ll hide upstairs in a room in my parents‘ house, put on a clean shirt, and talk a lot with my hands!!!” join @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social , Yael Segalovitz, @samantharhill.bsky.social, and me!

Moby-Dick seminar brings about questions about self / political / religious / perspectives on life by an author in times of formation. My great grandfather’s middle name was Melville. His brother Harold died at sea. @samantharhill.bsky.social #writing #novels open.substack.com/pub/samantha...

Happy to see that my pal Samantha Rose Hill got a shout out in the Times this weekend. @samantharhill.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2025/12/05/b...

I am co-leading a year-long Man Without Qualities Reading Group with @samantharhill.bsky.social , starting on Monday, October 13th. Join us! Details can be found here: genesegrill.substack.com/p/man-withou...

@samantharhill.bsky.social in New York Times

"The danger is not that A.I. will replace human connection. The danger is that it will make us forget what actual connection requires..." @samantharhill.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2025/07/07/o...

"The danger is not that AI will replace human connection," @samantharhill.bsky.social writes. The danger is that it will make us forget what actual connection requires while eroding our ability to think for ourselves." www.nytimes.com/2025/07/07/o...

“Tech companies have found a way to market digital goods to lonely people, promising relief through connection, but this kind of connection isn’t the solution; it’s the problem,” @samantharhill.bsky.social on the tech loneliness doom hoop. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/07/o...

My favorite definition of love Rainer Maria Rilke:

Look Sam, Heidelberg is online @samantharhill.bsky.social youtu.be/i04iCnOUAvc?...

Hannah Arendt with her mother Martha Sara Cohn

Frank O'Hara

"Boredom is the threshold to great deeds." — Walter Benjamin

"We've grown very poor in threshold experiences." — Walter Benjamin

Arrived separately together Looking forward to reading!

I have been reading and teaching Walter Benjamin's On the Concept of History for nearly twenty years and today I finally felt the revolutionary argument in the work. Against historicism, against orthodox historical materialism, toward revolutionary historical materialism—waiting.

Read Hermann Broch's The Death of Virgil with me! Especially if you’re feeling a bit at sea, adrift between the no-longer and not-yet A monument to a moment in time written through meditations on time as Broch imagined the final hours of Virgil’s life. samantharosehill.substack.com/p/invitation-t

"The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the ‘state of emergency’ in which we live is not the exception but the rule." — Walter Benjamin

Trump cancels humanities grants to subsidize building statues to humanities scholars, including, apparently, Hannah Arendt, who wrote an entire book about how fascists—like trump—come to power in part by trying to censor what people can read, write, and think about.

Tuberculosis is coming back People are afraid of vaccines No more food safety regulations They want to increase industrial factory production All while engaging in imperial wars of expansion People calling for revolution Welcome to the 19th century! Can't wait for the barricades.

"The true goal of Fascism was only to seize power and establish the Fascist 'elite' as uncontested ruler over the country." — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

Arendt and the Freedom to Change the World, a conversation with Lyndsey Stonebridge @lyndseystonebri.bsky.social & Samantha Rose Hill @samantharhill.bsky.social hosted by Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona www.cccb.org/en/multimedi...

Just say nein. Avoid opera houses. Don't listen to jazz. Have a good weekend.

"Laughter helps one to find a place in the world, but ironically, which is to say, without selling one’s soul to it." — Hannah Arendt

Cue Trump supporters to praise his superior tariff cleverness, accepting their losses in the name of being on the right side of history

Next Sunday evening, April 13, 8pm Join Genese Grill and me to discuss Hannah Arendt's poems substack.com/home/post/p-...

In case anyone questions the importance of the audience: It's not just that news became entertainment. It's also that people stopped knowing what they were applauding. It's the moment when every performance began receiving a standing O. When people began clapping for themselves.

"I am not tired, or much tired, just exhausted." — Hannah Arendt

Read Gertrude Stein with me!

Hi Everyone! I thought I was cross-posting, but I wasn't. So, I've added what I posted on X from my travels. Going to fix the problem. Thank you for being here. - SH

In the fall of 1940 when Walter Benjamin and Hannah Arendt parted ways in Marseilles he entrusted her with a suitcase of his writings. Among the papers was a copy of Theses on the Philosophy of History Join me for a class on Benjamin's life and last work roundtable.org/live-courses/h

Ein Märchen von Hannah Arendt: Die weisen Tiere It's in the archive at the Library of Congress... yet to be translated into English. www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/die-weisen-t...

Closed the last night of 23 days of touring by reading poems with Paul Holdengräber and talking about what writers become when they die

Hannah on top

Spending some time with Hölderlin

Hannah Arendt’s library card for the Bibliotheque Nationale de France from 1939.

The view from Hölderlin’s window

"Faced with the prospect of German invasion Walter Benjamin renewed his library card." — Barbara Johnson Walter Benjamin's library card for the Bibliotheque Nationale de France from 1940

There is a German word, Gleichschaltung, that everyone should know. Because right now universities and institutions are being asked for conform to Trump's agenda in exchange for funding. Here is one passage from Hannah Arendt's "Personal Responsibility Under Dictatorship":

Absolutely incredible episode of @backlisted.bsky.social on Hannah Arendt with fascinating contributions from @lyndseystonebri.bsky.social - very good to hear discussion of the recently published poems in context of wider work cc. @samantharhill.bsky.social open.spotify.com/episode/3jRs...

Last week with @samantharhill.bsky.social at the wonderful CCCB Barcelona. www.cccb.org/en/multimedi...

Join me for a class on Walter Benjamin: Time and Tragedy at the 92nd St Y this April! roundtable.org/live-courses...