Hannah Arendt and the meaning of politics Is politics really nothing more than power relations competing interests and claims for recognition conflicting assertions of simple truths No thinker has argued more passionately against this narrow view than Hannah Arendt and no one has more to say to those who bring questions of meaning identity value and transcendence to our impoverished public life. This volume brings leading figures in philosophy political theory intellectual history and literary theory into a dialogue about Arendts work and its significance for todays fractious identity politics public ethics and civic life. For each essay on the fate of politics in a postmodern post Marxist era; on the connection of nonfoundationalist ethics and epistemology to democracy; on the conditions conducive to a vital public sphere; on the recalcitrant problems of violence and evil the volume includes extended responses and a concluding essay by Martin Jay responding to all the others. Ranging from feminism to aesthetics to the discourse of democracy the essays explore how an encounter with Arendt reconfigures disrupts and revitalizes what passes for public debate in our day. Together they forcefully demonstrate the power of Arendts work as a splendid provocation and a living resource.