The political relevance of friendship: Dr. Marion Detjen discusses Hannah Arendt and Helen Wolff

Dr. Marion Detjen has recently participated in two events in New York where she shared her expertise on 20th century author and publisher Helen Wolff. At the annual conference of the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York and a panel event at the Goethe-Institut New York, Detjen discussed the friendship between Wolff and Hannah Arendt.

This year’s annual conference at Bard’s Hannah Arendt Center (HAC) was centered around the theme of “Friendship and Politics.” The Center describes Hannah Arendt’s idea of the political relevance of friendship: “The world is not humane simply because it is made by human beings. Rather, the things of this world only become human ‘when we can discuss them with our fellows.’ For Arendt, it follows that in public life, ‘friendship is not intimately personal but makes political demands and preserves reference to the world.’ The common world is thus held together by friendship.”

Helen Wolff, of whom Detjen is a great-niece and biographer, was a close friend of Arendt. In the concluding panel of the two-day conference, Detjen spoke on Arendt's friendship with Wolff and explained the term "respectful distance," which was coined for their relationship by another friend of theirs, Lotte Köhler. Drawing from unpublished correspondence, Detjen showed how Arendt and Wolff collaborated on publishing projects from the 1950s up until Arendt's death in 1976. She discussed how discretion and keeping secrets were a condition for the success of their work together, for the benefit of the literary causes they cared for.

In addition, Detjen also co-organised an event at the Goethe-Institut New York on the friendship of Arendt and Wolff, presenting Wolff's posthumously discovered novella Background for Love that has recently been translated into English by her grandson Tristram Wolff. It will be published by Pushkin Press in June 2024, together with a long afterword by Detjen. Another grandson of Helen’s, Alexander Wolff, introduced the event with a presentation of the “Helen Wolff Grants,” stipends for writers at risk that are financed through the royalties from the books about the Wolffs that the family brings out over time.

During the event, Tristram Wolff read from his translation of Background for Love, and Detjen gave a talk on the correspondence between Arendt and Wolff through their publishing and reviewing activities in 1945, while trying to come to terms with the absolute evil. Thomas Wild, research director of the Hannah Arendt Center, responded by elaborating on the role of language and literature in Arendt and Wolff’s friendship, noting the continuities between the novel and Helen Wolff’s letter writing. The discussion was moderated by Roger Berkowitz, the Hannah Arendt Center’s academic director.

Detjen’s research on Wolff and Arendt offers a unique perspective on the intersection of personal and political in the early 20th century.

Post Date: 11-06-2023