Seminar Description

Seminar Topic

My goal is to explore with you three key works by the political theorist, Hannah Arendt: Eichmann in Jerusalem , The Origins of Totalitarianism , and The Human Condition . These works shed light on the problem of evil and the use of terror in the contemporary age, and provide a philosophical perspective on current debates about the use of violence to settle political conflicts, about the conditions of democracy, and about the scope and importance of human rights.

October 2006 marked the centennial of Hannah Arendt's birth in Hannover , Germany . Around the world, conferences were held to celebrate the life and work of this brilliant political philosopher, who refused to call herself a philosopher, this woman who never considered her sex an obstacle in her life, a Jew who was called anti-Semitic for her controversial portrait of Adolf Eichmann as a “thoughtless,” “terrifyingly normal” person, and who was a rigorous thinker who wrote passionately about hatred and love. Hannah Arendt tackled some of the thorniest moral and political questions of modern times. Her controversial positions on violence, politics, moral judgment and the role of forgiveness and love in human affairs made her as well known in literary and political circles for her brave, powerful prose, as she was among academicians for her philosophical arguments.