Martin Caver | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (original) (raw)
Papers by Martin Caver
This dissertation seeks to understand and clarify Hannah Arendt's concept of amor mundi, a lo... more This dissertation seeks to understand and clarify Hannah Arendt's concept of amor mundi, a love of the world, and the way it fits into her corpus and into contemporary theoretical understandings of love's relationship to politics. I argue that this concept fundamentally animates Arendt's political thought and, as such, is an under-examined area of scholarship. Furthermore, I argue that it has important normative implications for politics: in our political ideals, our institutional practices, and the sorts of judgments we make about political action. However, I also argue that this concept and Arendt's pluralistic ideals more broadly are limited in terms of the way their aestheticization of politics can render the marginalization faced by some citizens more difficult to address. I offer an interpretation of the work of James Baldwin in order to reevaluate, through the lens of race, the difficult yet important ways a love of the world might be negotiated in contexts of...
Polity
In 1962, James Baldwin received a letter from Hannah Arendt in response to a recently published e... more In 1962, James Baldwin received a letter from Hannah Arendt in response to a recently published essay. It read: “In politics, love is a stranger… . Hatred and love belong together… . You can afford them only in private and, as a people, only so long as you are not free.” I use this letter as a point of departure to examine the productive similarities and differences between these two important theorists of love’s relationship to politics. Arendt provides crucial resources in understanding the dangers love can play in modern alienation. However, her alternative, a love of the world, is limited by her account of judgment. Baldwin’s ideal of love shows equal concern for the public world, but it elevates the role of feeling in judgment. This account of feeling, and the type of imagination that activates it, helps to realize a more inclusive political world, one where black lives matter.
... lingual expression and hybridization, lives are most often led in one language at a time. It ... more ... lingual expression and hybridization, lives are most often led in one language at a time. It ... with Hegel's dialectic of recognition into what he calls a "politics of acknowledgment."40 This construct is no more successful at countering liberal multiculturalism than Appiah's ...
C. MARTIN CAVER: A Vindication of Feminist Identity Politics: Towards a Combaheean Response to Ze... more C. MARTIN CAVER: A Vindication of Feminist Identity Politics: Towards a Combaheean Response to Zerilli’s “Freedom-Centered Feminism” (Under the direction of Susan Bickford) This paper is primarily an extended critique and meditation on Linda Zerilli’s Feminism and The Abyss of Freedom. In that remarkable text Zerilli attempts to move beyond the perennial debates of identity reification, deconstruction, and calls to a “strategic essentialism.” Drawing on the work of Hannah Arendt, she helps us to refocus on the primacy of politics as an active doing instead of a rule-governed practice. However, in so doing she downplays the work of feminists committed to just the sort of political engagement she champions, yet who insist on making claims based on identity. I attempt to show that these identity claims should not be perceived as a rule which politics should follow, but as essentially political themselves. Using the Combahee River Collective Statement as an illustration of this, I show ...
In 1962, James Baldwin received a letter from Hannah Arendt in response to a recently published e... more In 1962, James Baldwin received a letter from Hannah Arendt in response to a recently published essay. It read: "In politics, love is a stranger...Hatred and love belong together...you can afford them only in private and, as a people, only so long as you are not free." I use this letter as a point of departure to examine the productive similarities and differences between these two important theorists of love's relationship to politics. Arendt provides crucial resources in understanding the dangers love can play in modern alienation. However, her alternative, a love of the world, is limited by her account of judgment. Baldwin's ideal of love shows equal concern for the public world, but it elevates the role of feeling in judgment. This account of feeling and the type of imagination that activates it helps to realize a more inclusive political world, one where black lives matter.
This dissertation seeks to understand and clarify Hannah Arendt's concept of amor mundi, a lo... more This dissertation seeks to understand and clarify Hannah Arendt's concept of amor mundi, a love of the world, and the way it fits into her corpus and into contemporary theoretical understandings of love's relationship to politics. I argue that this concept fundamentally animates Arendt's political thought and, as such, is an under-examined area of scholarship. Furthermore, I argue that it has important normative implications for politics: in our political ideals, our institutional practices, and the sorts of judgments we make about political action. However, I also argue that this concept and Arendt's pluralistic ideals more broadly are limited in terms of the way their aestheticization of politics can render the marginalization faced by some citizens more difficult to address. I offer an interpretation of the work of James Baldwin in order to reevaluate, through the lens of race, the difficult yet important ways a love of the world might be negotiated in contexts of...
Polity
In 1962, James Baldwin received a letter from Hannah Arendt in response to a recently published e... more In 1962, James Baldwin received a letter from Hannah Arendt in response to a recently published essay. It read: “In politics, love is a stranger… . Hatred and love belong together… . You can afford them only in private and, as a people, only so long as you are not free.” I use this letter as a point of departure to examine the productive similarities and differences between these two important theorists of love’s relationship to politics. Arendt provides crucial resources in understanding the dangers love can play in modern alienation. However, her alternative, a love of the world, is limited by her account of judgment. Baldwin’s ideal of love shows equal concern for the public world, but it elevates the role of feeling in judgment. This account of feeling, and the type of imagination that activates it, helps to realize a more inclusive political world, one where black lives matter.
... lingual expression and hybridization, lives are most often led in one language at a time. It ... more ... lingual expression and hybridization, lives are most often led in one language at a time. It ... with Hegel's dialectic of recognition into what he calls a "politics of acknowledgment."40 This construct is no more successful at countering liberal multiculturalism than Appiah's ...
C. MARTIN CAVER: A Vindication of Feminist Identity Politics: Towards a Combaheean Response to Ze... more C. MARTIN CAVER: A Vindication of Feminist Identity Politics: Towards a Combaheean Response to Zerilli’s “Freedom-Centered Feminism” (Under the direction of Susan Bickford) This paper is primarily an extended critique and meditation on Linda Zerilli’s Feminism and The Abyss of Freedom. In that remarkable text Zerilli attempts to move beyond the perennial debates of identity reification, deconstruction, and calls to a “strategic essentialism.” Drawing on the work of Hannah Arendt, she helps us to refocus on the primacy of politics as an active doing instead of a rule-governed practice. However, in so doing she downplays the work of feminists committed to just the sort of political engagement she champions, yet who insist on making claims based on identity. I attempt to show that these identity claims should not be perceived as a rule which politics should follow, but as essentially political themselves. Using the Combahee River Collective Statement as an illustration of this, I show ...
In 1962, James Baldwin received a letter from Hannah Arendt in response to a recently published e... more In 1962, James Baldwin received a letter from Hannah Arendt in response to a recently published essay. It read: "In politics, love is a stranger...Hatred and love belong together...you can afford them only in private and, as a people, only so long as you are not free." I use this letter as a point of departure to examine the productive similarities and differences between these two important theorists of love's relationship to politics. Arendt provides crucial resources in understanding the dangers love can play in modern alienation. However, her alternative, a love of the world, is limited by her account of judgment. Baldwin's ideal of love shows equal concern for the public world, but it elevates the role of feeling in judgment. This account of feeling and the type of imagination that activates it helps to realize a more inclusive political world, one where black lives matter.