Professor Dr. Annette Vowinckel
Senior Fellow, October 2026 to September 2027
Humboldt University of Berlin
- Since 2021 Adjunct Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at Humboldt University Berlin
- Since 2018 Co-editor of the Critical Edition of the Works of Hannah Arendt
- Since 2014 Head of the Department of Media History at the Leibniz Center for Contemporary History in Potsdam (ZZF)
Fellow project: Hannah Arendt as a Historical Figure
The reception of Hannah Arendt’s work and persona in the Federal Republic of Germany has long been characterized by almost unanimous approval. As a Jewess, a woman, a refugee and a public intellectual, she has become both an intellectual authority and a figure of identification for those seeking guidance amid the turmoil of the German 'theatre of reconciliation' (Max Czollek). However, in other countries—particularly Israel and the Soviet Union and its satellite states during the Cold War—she was almost unanimously rejected for a variety of reasons.
Against this background, I will reassess Arendt as a historical figure. My aim is to honor her not only as an original thinker but also as a controversial historical figure who, in Ernest Gellner's words, would have had to be invented had she not existed.