Professor Lyndsey Stonebridge on totalitarianism today | University of Birmingham

Inaugural lectures are a landmark in academic life, held on the appointment of new professorships. Professor Stonebridge spoke at the University's Exchange building in Birmingham City Centre on 12 March 2024.
Totalitarianism once seemed like a fairly safely historical word, belonging to the grim regimes of the twentieth century, to another time, and another mindset. To talk of totalitarianism in the twenty-first century seemed, at best, an anachronism, or at worst, alarmist. Yet over the past ten years artists, writers, and activists are now regularly using the word totalitarian to describe not just regimes, but current modes of thinking and ideology.
Drawing on her new book, We Are Free to Change the World: Hannah Arendt’s Lessons in Love and Disobedience, in this lecture Professor Lyndsey Stonebridge, FBA, returns to the work of the most famous theorist of totalitarianism, the political-philosopher, Hannah Arendt. Woman, Jew, refugee, and pariah - and interdisciplinary thinker par excellence - Arendt looked at the world from outside of conventional academic and political categories. What can we learn from her anti-totalitarian thinking today?

[@deeliciousplum]

A heartfelt thank you to Prof Lyndsey Stonebridge for sharing their time and passionate explorations/concerns and for introducing me to the writings of Hannah Arendt. Our societies may need to be protecting, rewarding, and ennobling umbrellaless humanitarian/enlightening voices. 🌸 Thank you to University of Birmingham for sharing this challenging and insightful talk.

[@artemisXsidecross]

Thank you this is a nice addition 'We Are Free to Change the World: Hannah Arendt's Lessons in Love and Disobedience' by Professor Lyndsey Stonebridge. ☘