This evening’s theme explores the challenge of staying in dialogue and connection across our differences through Hannah Arendt’s friendships. Make the most of your Connect IRL experience by coming before or staying after the featured event. Grab a drink or snack at the bar. Sign up for The Friendship Test Workshop (see registration below) or try out one of the engagement activities available, including tonight’s Conversation Station: The Kitchen Table, where you can take a moment or two to connect with a stranger to reflect on the rewards and challenges of friendship.
*****
Join us at the Toronto Reference Library's Appel Salon for Friendships and other Complexities with political theorist Roger Berkowitz in conversation with Sanjay Ruparelia.
This one is about the harder kind of connection: staying in relationships with people you disagree with. We'll consider friendship not as a private comfort but as political work; the daily, unglamorous business of talking with people whose views unsettle us and whose reasoning we may never fully understand. Expect to be asked what you're willing to hold open, and to talk it through with people who won't necessarily see it your way.
What can Hannah Arendt's friendships — including with people whose politics she found troubling — teach us about sustaining democracy today? If our current political crisis is, at its root, a crisis of friendship, what has eroded our capacity to stay in dialogue across difference? And in an age of mass loneliness and ideological certainty, what would it mean to treat friendship, rather than consensus or moral purity, as the foundation of democratic life?
Berkowitz is founder and academic director of the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities at Bard College. In A World We Share: Hannah Arendt and the Power of Friendship in a Broken World, he rethinks politics through Arendt's own life — a Jewish woman who escaped Nazi Germany, lived as an exile in Paris and then New York, and became a bold critic of popular ideas after World War II. People who knew her said she had a special talent for making friends. Berkowitz argues that a politics built solely on being right becomes cruel, coercive and ultimately anti-political.
Come ready to disagree agreeably.
Q&A and book signing to follow. Books available for purchase.
About this event’s guests:
Roger Berkowitz
Sanjay Ruparelia
Read more:
World We Share : Hannah Arendt and the Power of Friendship in A Broken World
***
Sign up for The Friendship Test Workshop | 5:30 - 6:30 pm
The Kitchen Table | 5:30–6:30 pm & 8:00 – 9:00 pm
Grab a seat and dig into the questions we rarely ask out loud: How has your definition of friendship changed? Can you stay close to someone you disagree with? What makes a friendship last? Inspired by Berkowitz's argument that friendship — not agreement — is the glue of a healthy society, this café is a space to reflect on your own circle with the strangers sitting next to you.
Connect IRL is not your average series of events, workshops and activities, but a real chance to connect with other Torontonians in meaningful and sometimes unexpected ways. Through conversation stations meant to spark one-on-one conversations, or hands-on engagement activities and workshops before the featured event, participants can explore the value of connection and community.
PLAN YOUR VISIT:
Location: Bram and Bluma Appel Salon, Toronto Reference Library (789 Yonge Street), 2nd floor
Time: Doors open 5:30pm, Onstage event starts 7:00pm.
Tickets: Free registration required.
Ticket policy: We oversell these events to ensure that the greatest number of people have an opportunity to attend. Tickets guaranteed until 6:45pm or until capacity is reached. Seating first come, first served.
Bar: Beer/wine available for purchase (debit/credit only).
Accessibility: TPL is committed to accessibility. If you are Deaf or have a disability and would like to request accommodation for this event, please contact accessibleservices@tpl.ca or 416-393-7099 at least three weeks prior to the event.
Information Collection Notice: The personal information on this form is collected by the Toronto Public Library under the Public Libraries Act, sections 20(a), 20(c), and 20(d). The information will only be used for event and program registration, delivery and evaluation. Registrants may be contacted to fill out a brief survey following the program. Questions about how the library handles your information can be directed to Answerline staff at answerline@tpl.ca, 416-397-5981, 789 Yonge Street, Toronto ON M4W 2G8.
Click here to book tickets on Eventbrite (tpl-berkowitz.eventbrite.ca) For: Adults (18+). Programme type: Author Talks & Lectures. Series: On Civil Society. Location in branch: Bram and Bluma Appel Salon, Toronto Reference Library (789 Yonge Street), 2nd floor. Registration is required. Contact: Answerline, 416-397-5981, answerline@tpl.ca.
Wednesday, October 21
7:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
Accessibility: TPL is committed to accessibility.
Toronto Reference Library · 789 Yonge Street
Venue details →