The world's most expansive home for bold and risky thinking about our political world.
The center provides an uncensored, nonpartisan space for bold, risky and provocative thinking about politics, inviting scholars, students and the public to engage seriously and openly with the political world.
Founded in 2006 to mark the 100th anniversary of Hannah Arendt’s birth, with the inaugural conference “Thinking in Dark Times.” The center is located in McCarthy House on the Bard campus in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, once the home of Mary McCarthy, Arendt’s literary executor; its conference room holds Arendt’s own desk.
The center houses the Hannah Arendt Library, roughly 5,000 books from Arendt’s personal collection including her marginalia, cared for together with archivists of the Stevenson Library. Its programs include lectures, reading groups, podcasts, the weekly Amor Mundi newsletter, and the annual Arendt Forum, which reached its 20th edition in 2025.
Founded: 2006
Affiliated with: Bard College
Founder and Academic Director: Roger Berkowitz
Location: McCarthy House, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
McCarthy House, Bard College, PO Box 5000, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504, USA
Email: arendt@bard.edu
Phone: +1 (845) 758-7878
Website: hac.bard.edu
Instagram: @hannaharendtcenteratbard | Medium: @arendt_center
Press contact: No named press officer; general enquiries via arendt@bard.edu and hac.bard.edu/press.
