Abstract
The renowned Bauhaus weaver Anni Albers and the celebrated social critic Hannah Arendt both entered the United States as refugees from Nazi Germany. This essay explores the distinct yet parallel ways in which their respective works amplify their experiences of displacement and give voice to a political stance on behalf of the voiceless. Albers’s writing and creative output engage directly with the unstable, nomadic character of modern life, promoting the role of textiles as portable shelter in an age of extreme mobility. Meanwhile, Arendt outlines a fierce critique of political and social structures that lack the capacity to define the rights of refugees as “nothing but human beings.” Both locate the particular conditions of postwar modernity within the experience of the refugee, whose liminal identity is strictly undefinable and yet increasingly ubiquitous.
Published Version
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