#14 Helgard Mahrdt | Hannah Arendt and the Double Responsibility of Educators

ResponsAbility - Dialogues on Practical Knowledge and Bildung in Professional Studies

Our guest in this episode is Dr. Helgard Mahrdt from the Center for Gender Research at the University of Oslo. She was also Associate Professor at the Department of Literature, Area Studies, and European Languages and Visiting Professor at the University of Ljubljana. Furthermore, she served as a Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities in Copenhagen and has been affiliated with the Humaniora study group at the University of Oslo. In this episode, we explore her long-standing engagement with the political thought of Hannah Arendt, focusing on Arendt’s insights into education, judgment, and responsibility. We discuss Arendt’s concept of the educator’s double responsibility—toward both the child and the world—and what it means to teach in an era marked by alienation, expropriation, and the breakdown of tradition. We also reflect on the role of thinking, remembering, and public discourse in shaping democratic life, and on how educators and universities must respond to rising authoritarian pressures.

00:01:25 – What brought Helgard to study the life and work of Hannah Arendt?

00:03:48 – On the double responsibility of the educator

00:04:09 – On Arendt’s concept of Being-in-the-world and its relevance for education

00:11:45 – On the difference between moral and political responsibility

00:15:52 – What lessons can we draw from Arendt regarding current radical political movements?

00:21:19 – Do universities have a political responsibility?

Literature:

• Arendt, H. (2017): The Origins of Totalitarianism. London: Penguin Books.
• Arendt, H. (2018): The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Arendt, H. (2022): Eichmann in Jerusalem. London: Penguin Books.
• Arendt, H. (2006): On Revolution. London: Penguin Books.
• Mahrdt, H. (in progress) Hannah Arendt – to be at home in the world. Vidar Forlag: Oslo.
• Mahrdt, H. (2022): Responding to wrong-doing. Ethics and Education. ISSN 1744-9642. 17(2), p. 197–210. doi: 10.1080/17449642.2022.2054541.
• Mahrdt, H. (2018): Arendt and the notion of plurality, In: Filosofisk supplement.
• Mahrdt, H. (2015): Refugees and Europe: a dilemma or a turning point. In: Studier i Pedagogisk Filosofi. Vol. 4. No. 2.
• Mahrdt, H. (2012): Hannah Arendt: Self-disclosure, Worldliness and plurality. Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology. Vol 43. No.3. (pp.250-263).