Can we imagine power without violence?

Arendt’s experience of flight and exile from fractured wartime Europe shaped the philosopher’s distinctive political thought. Today, once again, the condition of refugees and displaced persons distils certain truths about our troubled historical moment. In this wide-ranging and polyphonic conversation and performance, we will enquire into the distinction between strength and violence; when utopian thought risks shading into extremism; the inhumanity that nation-states inflict upon non-citizens; and how the redemptive power of the arts opens up new possibilities for political action.

Lyndsey Stonebridge

Speaker

Lyndsey Stonebridge is a professor of Humanities and Human Rights at the University of Birmingham and a Fellow of the British Academy. Her work focuses on 20th-century literature and intellectual history, contemporary literature and theory, and the cultural histories of human rights, exile, and migration. Her books include the award-winning The Judicial Imagination: Writing after Nuremberg (2011) and Placeless People: Writing, Rights, and Refugees (2018). Her collection of essays Writing and Righting: Literature in the Age of Human Rights was published in 2020. The work of the 20th-century political theorist Hannah Arendt has long been central to Lyndsey’s thinking. Her new book on Arendt’s life and thought, We Are Free to Change the World: Hannah Arendt’s Lessons in Love and Disobedience, will be published by Jonathan Cape in January 2024.

Lyndsey can be found on Twitter @lyndseystonebri

Lynn Adib

Artist

Born and raised in Damascus, Syria, Lynn Adib is a fully-fledged singer and composer. Her career has seen her exploring Arabic music and questioning her place in the canon of patrimonial heritage. She works across a variety of genres ranging from improvisation, jazz and soul to electronic and experimental, and has taken part in many collaborative projects such as Lynn Adib Quartet, Bedouin Burger, Yalla Queen, and the album Nearness (2022). Described as one of the world’s few celestially voiced singers, Lynn carries a degree in jazz studies from the National Conservatory of Paris, where she currently resides.

Lynn can be found on Facebook at @lynnadibmusic and on Instagram at @lynnadib

Brigid Hains

Host

Brigid Hains is the editorial director of Aeon Media. An environmental historian by training, she is driven by a deep curiosity about the natural and human worlds. The Sophia Club is a chance for Brigid to express her love of beauty and the arts, and to share the heartfelt dimensions of her intellectual life.