Rooted plurality. On the transformative power of Arendt's thinking

Performative lecture by Joran Yonis on Hannah Arendt's concept of plurality and on marginalisation research in the context of the exhibition Anna K.E. Dolorem Ipsum.

Hannah Arendt's thinking was characterised by an astonished curiosity and at the same time a struggle for plurality. As she experienced the fragility of maintaining plurality in her own body, she repeatedly pleaded in her writing for an active realisation of plurality. From this position, the perspective of the pariah, she developed a resistant practice of writing that made her a thinker of the rights of marginalised and discriminated people.

The lecture will explore the question of what transformative forces can still be found in Arendt's concept of plurality for the struggle of the marginalised and discriminated. It will ask how Arendt's thinking helps us to imagine a future worth fighting for? How do we need to rethink our struggles in order to make them more resistant together? The lecture will address both the powerful moments in Arendt's thinking that still allow us to learn today, as well as the gaps and pitfalls in her thinking that themselves have a destructive effect on plurality.

Joran Yonis is a scholar, (performance) artist and curator. Yonis is currently working on his doctorate on Hannah Arendt's concept of plurality. Yonis is asking what makes Arendt valuable for current discourses on marginalisation and what Arendt's potential is for contemporary research on marginalisation. At the same time, Yonis works at the University of Osnabrück and is co-founder of the YUP collective, which has been curating performance art festivals since 2017.