Unlearning with Hannah Arendt

Description

After observing the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem, Hannah Arendt formulated her controversial concept of the 'banality of evil' and asked the question: how can seemingly normal people carry out genocidal acts? She found her answer by focusing on the machinery of Nazi genocide and the organizational capacity of the victims: the Jewish Councils drawing up lists for deportation. The latter proved hugely controversial when the book was first published in serial form in the New Yorker. Anchoring its discussion in the themes of laughter, translation, forgiveness, and dramatization, this book explores how the iconic political theorist 'unlearned' trends and patterns to establish her own theoretical praxis.

Marie Luise Knott is a journalist, translator, and author living in Berlin. She is the founder of the German edition of Le Monde diplomatique and was its editor-in-chief for eleven years. She has written numerous essays on art and literature, as well as two important studies of Hannah Arendt. David Dollenmayer is an emeritus professor of German at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. His translations include works by Bertolt Brecht, Elias and Veza Canetti, Michael Kleeberg, and Hansjorg Schertenleib. He is the recipient of the 2008 Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize (for Moses Rosenkranz's Childhood) and the 2010 Translation Prize of the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York (for Michael Kohlmeier's Idyll with Drowning Dog).