CFP: Z.B.-Special Issue on „Hannah Arendt’s Examples“

z.B.-Special Issue on „Hannah Arendt’s Examples“ 
Edited by Carolin Blumenberg and Jessica Güsken

The upcoming special issue of the scientific journal z.B. Zeitschrift zum Beispiel asks about the examples in Hannah Arendt’s thinking. The philosopher, who did not want to be labeled as such, has both provided examples and reflected on them—particularly in the context of her analyses of totalitarianism or her considerations on judgment. However, Arendt’s texts also repeatedly reveal a particular restraint, a caution, even a certain mistrust towards examples and their normative character, the familiar and habitual that they seem to carry with them. As Arendt states, “comprehension” does not mean “denying the outrageous, deducing the unprecedented from precedents, or explaining phenomena by such analogies and generalities that the impact of reality and the shock of experience are no longer felt“ (Origins of Totalitarianism, p. xiv). Arendt’s concept of “thinking without a banister” can thus be understood as an attempt to free oneself from traditional examples and their commonplace character. Not least, it is about thinking the unprecedented. Examples are suspected of ideological bias, especially because of their subsumption logic—placing the particular under a general category. As Arendt explains in Origins of Totalitarianism, turning something into an example is an act of simplification that forms the basis of all mass propaganda: ideologies explain “facts as mere examples of laws and eliminate any coincidences by inventing an all-embracing omnipotence which is supposed to be at the root of every accident” (p. 352).

Arendt considers the act of giving examples as a practice—not only in philosophy but primarily as a political action and practice of governance. At the same time, she discusses the performative and exemplary character of action itself, especially the relationship between role model and following, as well as the responsibility that comes with it: “Every deed is also an example. Political thinking and judgment are exemplary (Kant) because action is exemplary. Responsibility essentially means: knowing that you set an example, that others will follow; in this way, you change the world” (Denktagebuch, 644).
Thus, giving examples is an eminently political practice that operates within a tension between commonplace and event, mass propaganda and world-changing new beginning. One central question of this special issue therefore is: How do Arendt’s critical reflections relate to her own practice and politics of giving examples?

In her main work The Human Condition, only a few concrete examples appear at first glance; however, the introduction sketches a kind of framing through current events such as the launch of Sputnik into space in 1957 and the spread of automation. Conversely, Arendt’s Denktagebuch is full of examples—as well as counterexamples and critiques, for instance of Plato’s or Kants examples and their tradition. In other works, Arendt has focused on singular cases, such as Rahel Varnhagen, the case of Adolf Eichmann, and “the unprecedented crime of genocide in the midst of Occidental civilization“ (Origins of Totalitarianism, p. xvi). The problem of the examplary and the question of the paradigm come into play in different ways here. How is the relationship between individual case and example delineated? To what extent does Arendt address the relationship between law, normality, and exception in this context? And how can her examples of the “impotence of power” be understood (On Violence, p. 85)? What does she think of Pavel Kohout’s expectation of a “new example” (ibid., pp. 83f) — and what might one imagine under such a “new example”?

What role do the examples of the American Civil Rights Movement, student protests, and the Black Power movement play in her analysis of power and violence? How does Arendt delineate the relationship between individual cases and examples? Are there reappearances of examples from other texts or intertextual references through examples? Does Arendt critique other authors’ examples? Does she criticize her own examples? These are some of the questions that the contributions to this special issue are invited to explore.

The goal is to concretely examine the question of the example: For instance, a single example or multiple examples from Arendt’s texts could serve as a starting point, or the discussion could focus on the exemplary status of a particular case in Arendt’s thinking, linked with her meta-theoretical reflections on examples.

The issue will be bilingual. Contributions may be written in english or german, and should have a length of approximately 10 pages (up to 30,000 characters). Topic proposals with explanations of about one page in length can be sent by August 31, 2025, to Dr. Jessica Güsken ([email protected]). The deadline for completed submissions is February 1, 2026, with the planned publication of the issue in spring 2026.

The scientific journal z.B. Zeitschrift zum Beispiel has been published since 2018 and is based at the Institute for German Literature and Media Studies at FernUniversität in Hagen. The special issue “Hannah Arendt’s Examples” is edited by Dr. Carolin Blumenberg and Dr. Jessica Güsken. All issues are published both in print and online open acess. Further information about the journal and all previous issues can be found at: https://hagen-up.de/z-b-zeitschrift-zum-beispiel/
 

Works cited:
Hannah Arendt: Origins of Totalitarianism. New Edition with added Prefaces. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich: San Diego, New York, London 1973.

Hannah Arendt: On Violence. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich: San Diego, New York, London 1970.

Hannah Arendt: Denktagebuch. 1950 – 1973. Hg. v. Ursula Ludz u. Ingeborg Nordmann. 2. Aufl. München 2022.

Further reading on Exemplarity:
Blumenberg, Carolin: „Einleitung“, in: Blumenberg: Die Beispiele in der Kritik. Eine Untersuchung zur Rolle der Beispiele in Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Hamburg 2025. 

Gelley, Alexander (Hg.): Unruly Examples. On the Rhetoric of Exemplarity. Stanford/California 1995.

Güsken, Jessica: „Einleitung“, in: Güsken: Beispiele des Hässlichen in der Ästhetik (1750-1850). Göttingen 2022, S. 9-29.

Lowrie, Michèle; Lüdemann, Susanne (Hg.): Exemplarity and Singularity. Thinking through Partikulars in Philosophy, Literature and Law. Abingdon 2015.

Lück, Christian/Michael Niehaus/Peter Risthaus/Manfred Schneider (Hg.): Archiv des Beispiels. Vorarbeiten und Überlegungen. Zürich/Berlin 2013.

Pethes, Nicolas/Jens Ruchatz/Stefan Willer (Hg.): Das Beispiel. Epistemologie des Exemplarischen. Berlin 2007.

Schaub, Mirjam: Das Singuläre und das Exemplarische. Zur Logik und Praxis der Beispiele in Philosophie und Ästhethik. Zürich/Berlin 2010.