Abstract

How can we think about bodily, earthly, and otherwise material aspects of care with Arendt? This Arendt Studies special section is focused on those questions. In the introduction, I offer reflections on the contemporary crisis of care, discuss the reception of Arendt's "care for the world" in the secondary literature, and locate her in dialogue with such thinkers and traditions as Heidegger, Foucault, and the feminist and Black ethics of care (Joan Tronto in particular). For Arendt, I suggest, politically relevant care is neither fully private nor public but involves a more complex intertwining of the two that is sometimes acknowledged. The essay closes by pondering "earthly care" in the context of the emerging planetary politics.