Education
Dr. phil. in Philosophy
University of Heidelberg
Advisor: Prof. Karl Jaspers. Dissertation: Der Liebesbegriff bei Augustin (The Concept of Love in Augustine).
Graduate study in philosophy
Freiburg & Heidelberg
Phenomenology under Edmund Husserl at Freiburg; philosophy under Karl Jaspers at Heidelberg.
Study of philosophy and theology
University of Marburg
Philosophy under Martin Heidegger; New Testament theology under Rudolf Bultmann.
Academic Appointments
University Professor
The New School for Social Research, New York
Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science.
Professor
Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago
Visiting Professor
Princeton University
First woman appointed to a full professorship at Princeton.
Visiting appointments
Berkeley, Columbia, Northwestern, Wesleyan
Including a Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study, Wesleyan University.
Public & Editorial Work
Correspondent
The New Yorker
Covered the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem.
Executive Director
Jewish Cultural Reconstruction, New York
Recovering and redistributing Jewish cultural property after the war.
Chief Editor
Schocken Books, New York
Director of youth work
Youth Aliyah, Paris
Arranged the emigration of Jewish children from Europe to Palestine.
Selected Honours
Sonning Prize for Contributions to European Civilization, University of Copenhagen.
Emerson-Thoreau Medal, American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Sigmund Freud Prize, German Academy for Language and Literature.
Lessing Prize of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg.
Guggenheim Fellowship.
Lectures
Gifford Lectures, University of Aberdeen — The Life of the Mind.
Christian Gauss Seminars in Criticism, Princeton University.
Biographical
Born 14 October in Linden, Hanover; raised in Königsberg, East Prussia.
Detained by the Gestapo for research on antisemitism; fled Germany for Paris.
Stateless following the revocation of German citizenship; naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 1951.
Emigrated to New York with Heinrich Blücher via Lisbon.