Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften

Courtney Blair Hodrick

Postdoctoral Fellow

Resident at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften:

October 2025 – September 2026

Research topic at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften:

»The Concept of Hope in the Work of Hannah Arendt«

Project outline:

This project centers on a question Hannah Arendt posed in her »Denktagebuch«, her »Thinking Diary«: »Gibt es ein Denken, das nicht tryannisch ist?« (Is there a type of thinking that is not tyrannical?). It engages with Arendt’s work to offer a new diagnosis of the crisis plaguing liberal democracies around the world, tracing the philosophical origins of contemporary issues that range from the form of the nation state to the structure of ideological beliefs in totalitarian societies. Following Arendt’s lifelong search for a form of thinking conducive to human freedom reveals her emphasis on the persistent legacy of Hegel’s philosophy and the tyrannical side of the modern belief in progress in history. Taking up this search for ourselves, moreover, reveals new possibilities for human action and genuinely democratic forms of politics. (Courtney Blair Hodrick)

Research partner:

Courtney Hodrick is a fellow at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften at the invitation of research focus »Democratic Vistas: Reflections on the Atlantic World«.

Scholarly profile of Courtney Blair Hodrick

Courtney Blair Hodrick received her PhD in German Studies from Stanford University in 2023 with a dissertation on »The Concept of Hope in the Works of Hannah Arendt«. She then held a one-year Eli Reinhard Postdoctoral Fellowship in Jewish Studies at Stanford University, followed by a position as a Lecturer in Stanford’s first-year program in Civic, Global, and Liberal Education (COLLEGE). In her research at the intersection of German Studies, Jewish Studies, philosophy, and political theory, she focuses on the writings of Hannah Arendt and other German-Jewish authors in order to generate a new understanding of contemporary political and societal issues.

Selected publications:

Militant Democracy’s Institutional Conservatism«, in: Philosophy & Social Criticism 51,1 (2025), p. 29-49.
»Beyond ›Contemporary Relevance‹: Reading Critical Theory Today«, in: Contemporary Political Theory 21 (Suppl 2) (2022), p. 49-54.
(with B. Herborth), »Europe in Historical International Relations«, in: J.Costa López, B. de Carvalho und H. Leira (Hg.), Routledge Handbook of Historical International Relations, London: Routledge.

Courtney Blair Hodrick

Scholarly profile of Courtney Blair Hodrick

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