Arendt, Luxemburg, and the Republic

• In Event: Arendtian Politics

Abstract

In this paper, I take as my point of departure Arendt’s claim that what made Rosa Luxemburg distinctive among her socialist interlocutors was “the republican question.” Through a series of readings, I find that the republican question does in fact distinguish Luxemburg from her socialist interlocuters, including Marx, and also that, though Arendt doesn’t explicitly note this, gender politics is also central to it for Luxemburg. This point of entry allows me to also explore the republic in Arendt's political thought. I find that both Luxemburg and Arendt feared that the gender political question would automatically get collapsed into the social question. As a result, both Arendt and Luxemburg safeguarded the already embattled issue of the republican question by not adequately raising the gender question. Finally, I hold that doing is a task for contemporary political theorists and readers of Arendt and Luxemburg as one way to engage their writings today.

Author

• Angela Maione, University of Massachusetts, Amherst