The Vault

In this episode from the Institute’s Vault, Samantha Power describes how Hannah Arendt influenced her thinking about politics and human rights. Power spoke during a two day symposium-- “Hannah Arendt Right Now”--which explored the philosopher’s impact on the 21st Century. The 2006 event was held on the hundredth anniversary of Arendt’s birth.

Samantha Power was Barack Obama’s human rights adviser, and then served as the US Ambassador to the United Nations. She is the author of several books, including A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, which won the 2003 Pulitzer prize. She is a professor of practice at Harvard’s Law School and Kennedy School.

In the second half of the episode, Azar Nafisi responds to Power. Nafisi is best known for her 2003 book, Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books.

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A longtime Institute member, Katha Pollitt is an American poet, essayist and critic. She is the author of four essay collections and two books of poetry. Her column for The Nation magazine, “Subject to Debate” won a National Magazine Award in 2003.

In this episode from the Institute’s Vault, Pollitt talks about her 2007 book, Learning to Drive: And Other Life Stories, a collection of personal essays.

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From the Institute’s Vault, we have an excerpt from a two day symposium--“Hannah Arendt Right Now”--which explored the philosopher’s impact on the 21st Century. The 2006 event was held on the hundredth anniversary of Arendt’s birth.

In this episode, Dr. Rony Brauman describes how Arendt influenced his thinking about the politics of humanitarian aid. Brauman was president of Doctors without Borders from 1982 to 1994. In 1999, he co-directed The Specialist - Portrait of a Modern Criminal, a documentary about the trial of Adolf Eichman. Samantha Power responds to Brauman’s presentation. Power was the US ambassador to the United Nations from 2013 to 2017, and author of A Problem From Hell, America and the Age of Genocide, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2003.

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In this episode from the Institute’s Vault, we have an excerpt from a two day symposium--“Hannah Arendt Right Now”--which explored the philosopher’s impact on the 21st Century. The 2006 event was held on the hundredth anniversary of Arendt’s birth.

The focus of this episode is Arendt’s 1963 book, Eichmann in Jerusalem. The session begins with historian Anthony Grafton, whose father, a journalist, once wrote about Arendt. The second speaker is Dr. Rony Brauman, the co-directed The Specialist: Portrait of a Modern Criminal, a documentary about the trial of Adolf Eichman. The third speaker is Margarethe von Trotta, the German director whose 2012 film about Hannah Arendt focuses on the Eichmann trial. The session concludes with Pamela Katz, who wrote the screenplay for Hannah Arendt.

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In this episode from the Institute’s Vault, we have an excerpt from a two day symposium--“Hannah Arendt Right Now”--which explored the philosopher’s impact on the 21st Century. The 2006 event was held on the hundredth anniversary of Arendt’s birth. In this session, Azar Nafisi and Ladan Boroumand talk about how Arendt’s work on totalitarianism helped them understand the Islamic Revolution in Iran, where both of them were born. Azar Nafisi - is best known for her 2003 book Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books. Ladan Boroumand is an historian and human rights advocate. She is the author of several articles on the French Revolution, Iran’s Islamic revolution, and the nature of Islamist terrorism. 

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In this episode from the Institute’s Vault, we have an excerpt from a two day symposium--“Hannah Arendt Right Now”--which explored the philosopher’s impact on the 21st Century. The 2006 event was held on the hundredth anniversary of Arendt’s birth. In this session, Kanan Makiya discusses Arendt’s influence on his thinking with Jonathan Schell. Makiya was born in Baghdad and educated at MIT. His book, Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq, was published in 1989. Makiya was a proponent of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Schell, who died in 2014, was a writer for The New Yorker and The Nation. His 1967 book, The Village of Ben Suc, chronicled the devastation of a South Vietnamese village by American forces. He wrote many pieces against the war in the New Yorker.

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In this episode from the Institute’s Vault, we have an excerpt from a two day symposium--“Hannah Arendt Right Now”--which explored the philosopher’s impact on the 21st Century. The 2006 event was held on the hundredth anniversary of Arendt’s birth. In the opening session, Jonathan Schell and Elisabeth Young-Bruehl discuss Arendt’s thoughts on the nuclear question. Schell, who died in 2014, was a writer for The New Yorker and The Nation. His 1982 book, The Fate of the Earth, is a meditation on the consequences of nuclear war. Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, a longtime member of the Institute, died in 2011. She was a doctoral student of Arendt’s, and author of Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World, the first biography of Arendt.

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In this week’s episode from the Vault, we revisit a 2013 presentation by the Yale historian, Timothy Snyder, about the book he wrote with the historian, Tony Judt.

Judt was diagnosed with ALS in 2008 and died in 2010. He spent those two years writing books and lecturing, as well as holding weekly conversations with Snyder. The result was Thinking the Twentieth Century, which was published in 2012.

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In April 2006, the Institute held a symposium about copyright and intellectual property, titled Comedies of Fair Use. This panel is about documentary film, and was moderated by Duke professor law James Boyle. 

It begins with Amy Sewell, whose 2005 documentary, Mad Hot Ballroom looks at the lives of New York City public school kids, as they prepare for a citywide ballroom dancing competition. Charles Sims is a copyright and first amendment expert at the law firm of Proskauer Rose. 

Pat Aufderheide is co-author of Reclaiming Fair Use: How to Put Balance Back in Copyright, and professor at American University. Hugh Hanson teaches copyright and trademark law at Fordham University School of Law

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Institute fellow, and New Yorker staff writer, Masha Gessen is one of the foremost critics of Vladimir Putin. In 2014, Gessen spoke at the Institute with New Yorker editor David Remnick about Gessen's book, Words Will Break Cement, about Pussy Riot. Much of the conversation focused on Putin's ambitions for an imperial Russia.

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