Arendt's Rahel Varnhagen: A New Kind of Narration in the Impasses of German-Jewish Assimilation and Existenzphilosophie

Social Research: An International Quarterly 74 (3):903-922 (2007)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

A number of Jewish women invented a singular way of entering into German culture; singular in that no tradition in Judaism or in Germany had shown them the way. Rahel Varnhagen, one of the first, is the subject of a biography by Hannah Arendt. Varnhagen never wrote a book, only letters and a diary, in which she unsystematically mixed narration and reflection, political and philosophical thoughts. Arendt's biography is true to heterogeneity of this kind: her biographical writing offers no synthesis, jumping from systematic representations to individual experiences, and then to historical events or even social context. Arendt wrote to Jaspers that she had chosen the genre of biography precisely because she could not say what she wanted to in abstracto, meaning philosophic: more precisely, within the frames of Existenzphilosophie. Two things are noteworthy here: 1) the kind of biography that Arendt wrote; and 2) the very fact that she chose—despite Heidegger's well known contempt for it—the biographical genre. In order to give an account of those two things, one has to arrive at an understanding of what it is in the frames of Existenzphilosophie that prevents expression of the predicament of Rahel's existence and makes biography the more appropriate genre in her case

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

  • This entry has no external links. Add one.
Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Rahel Varnhagen and Goethe.Hannah Arendt-Stern - 2013 - Critical Inquiry 40 (1):15-24.
Shame and the future of feminism.Jill Locke - 2007 - Hypatia 22 (4):146-162.
Appartitre et visibilite. Le monde selon Hannah Arendt et Emmanuel Levinas.Martine Leibovici - 2006 - Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 14 (1-2):55-71.
Anashim ba-derekh.Raḥel Shor - 2005 - [Jerusalem?]: Raḥel Shor.
Hannah Arendt e Rachel Varnhagen: l'incrocio tra biografia e tradizione.Francesco Picchi - 2004 - Iride: Filosofia e Discussione Pubblica 17 (2):373-384.

Analytics

Added to PP
2013-12-31

Downloads
89 (#175,742)

6 months
1 (#1,040,386)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

República, narración histórica y pensamiento.Laura Arese - 2021 - Cuadernos Filosóficos / Segunda Época 17.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references