Hosted by the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College, New York, the conference focuses on both friendship and politics, which are seen as equally based in the act of talking to one another and equally lacking absolute states. The focus is on the questions:

• What is friendship? And why is it so meaningful?
• Is there a crisis of friendship today? And if so, why?
• Do identity politics and the culture of individualism stand in the way of friendship?
• How can we nurture the intimate and public friendships that allow us to flourish?
• Epistolary friendships are an old tradition. What is the possibility of long-distance epistolary friendships in the internet age?
• Does social media make possible new types of friendships?

Several editors of the Arendt Edition will be present: Roger Berkowitz speaks about "Friendship and Politics". Thomas Wild, Jana Schmidt, Ann Lauterbach and Thomas Bartscherer address "The Risks of Correspondence".

Roger Berkowitz and Angel Adams Parham discuss "Civic Friendship and Social Thought: A Necessary Conversation." With Barbara von Bechtolsheim, Marion Detjen, and Alex Cain, Roger Berkowitz discusses "Arendt's Friends: Heinrich Blücher, Karl Jaspers, and a Microworld."