Essays explore the significance of Julia Kristeva’s concept of intimate revolt for social and political philosophy. Over the last twenty years, French philosopher, psychoanalyst, and novelist Julia Kristeva has explored how global crises threaten people’s ability to revolt. In a context of widespread war, deepening poverty, environmental catastrophes, and rising fundamentalisms, she argues that a revival of inner psychic experience is necessary and empowering. “Intimate revolt” has become a central concept in Kristeva’s critical repertoire, framing and permeating her understanding of (...) power, meaning, and identity. New Forms of Revolt brings together ten essays on this aspect of Kristeva’s work, addressing contemporary social and political issues like immigration and cross-cultural encounters, colonial and postcolonial imaginations, racism and artistic representation, healthcare and social justice, the spectacle of global capitalism, and new media. Sarah K. Hansen is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at California State University, Northridge. Rebecca Tuvel is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Rhodes College. (shrink)

In times of current crisis, the voices of women are needed more than ever. The accumulation of war and environmental catastrophes teaches us that exploitation of people and nature through violent appropriation and enrichment for the sake of short-term self-interest exacts its price. This book presents contributions on the currently most relevant and most urgent issues: reshaping the economy, environmental problems, technology and the re-reading of history from the non-western and western tradition. With an outlook into the problems of class, (...) race and gender in its intersectional framing, the collection offers a unique overview of current research in these fields and contributes to the renewal and contemporary presentation of feminist thought from partly concrete perspectives with regard to factual issues. (shrink)

This article addresses the critique of the modern conception of history and time through a reading of Hannah Arendt. Arendt’s work provides an alternative to the thought with universal pretensions that has dominated the panorama of modernity. She thinks the historical through contradiction and gives a place to human experience next to facts. In thinking the event Arendt shows the insufficiency of the modern chronological appropriation of the past and the limits of using theory as a given framework of interpretation. (...) Understanding the historical event is to challenge the chronology assumed in our forms of understanding and representing the real. Her work blurs the tacit boundary that lurks in modern forms of representation between a ‘dynamic’ present and a ‘congealed’ past. Arendt’s thinking provides a critique of the modern notions of time and history as of the use of theory as a fixed framework of interpretation. (shrink)

Este trabajo busca analizar algunos de los problemas implicados en la teoría política de Arendt. Su deseo de establecer una autonomía de lo político le lleva a separar esta actividad de lo personal y de lo social. De este modo excluye del espacio público lo privado y lo económico, lo que supone no atender a aspectos que son fundamentales para entender correctamente la política y el modo en el que se organizan las sociedades actuales.

The perplexing relationship between two of the twentieth century’s most important philosophers, Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger, has been the subject of much speculation within academic circles. For Arendt, Heidegger was at once, her mentor, her lover, and her friend. In this paper, we juxtapose Arendt’s theory of the banality of evil against her relationship with Heidegger in an effort to consider the question: How does corporeality inform theorizing? In answering this question, we repudiate the conventional reading of the banality (...) of evil, which attributes the theory to Arendt’s analysis of Adolf Eichmann during the latter’s criminal trial for the actions that he perpetrated in the operation of the Holocaust. Instead, we argue that the theory is, more compellingly, reflective of Arendt’s deeply personal attempts at making sense of Heidegger’s decision to affiliate himself with the German Nazi Party in the years preceding, and during, the Second World War. Through this revisionist account of the banality of evil, we animate the idea that theorizing is the discursive corollary, and belongs within the phenomenological parameters, of corporeality. Finally, we contend that any constructive understanding of how corporeality informs theorizing will only be realized, when there is a collapsing of the seemingly impervious philosophical boundaries that demarcate between ontology and epistemology. (shrink)

The article examines the political challenge and significance of forgiveness as an indispensable response to the inherently imperfect and tragic nature of political life through the lens of the existential, narrative-inspired judging sensibility. While the political significance of forgiveness has been broadly recognized in transitional justice and reconciliation contexts, the question of its importance and appropriateness in the wake of grave injustice and suffering has commonly been approached through constructing a self-centred, rule-based framework, defining forgiveness in terms of a moral (...) duty or virtue. Reliant on a set of prefabricated moral standards, however, this approach risks abstracting from the historical, situated condition of human political existence and thus arguably stands at a remove from the very quandaries and imperfections of the political world, which it purports to address. Against this background, this article draws on Albert Camus’s and Hannah Arendt’s aesthetic, worldly judging sensibility and its ability to kindle the process of coming to terms with the absurd, and perhaps unforgivable character of reality after evil. As an aptitude to engage the world in its particularity, plurality and contingency rather than seeking to subdue and tame it under prefabricated standards of thought, namely, worldly judgement is able to reveal how past tragedies have arisen from the ambiguity of human engagement in the world and thereby also elicit the distinctly human capacities of beginning anew and resisting such actions in the future. As such, I suggest, it is well-suited to bring into clearer focus and confront the main political challenge and significance of forgiveness: how to acknowledge the seriousness of the wrongs committed, yet also enable the possibility of a new beginning and restore among former enemies the sense of responsibility for the shared world. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to reclaim Kristeva's concept of the semiotic chora by reinscribing it as an intervention in the context of two important postmodern debates. The first debate relates to the philosophical problem of "the beginning before the Beginning." The second concerns the necessity and possibility of mediation between incommensurable entities: the "demonic" and the social, desire and the Law, material production and representation. I contend: (1) that the introduction of the chora in RPL is part of (...) Kristeva's effort to restore the legacy of a materialist economy of the beginning, as this is glimpsed in Plato's Timaeus from which Kristeva borrows her controversial term; and (2) that the chora constitutes an attempt on Kristeva's part to explore a third space of ambiguous relationality in the context of which our transcendence to the "demonic" lies less "beyond us" than "in-between.". (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to reclaim Kristeva's concept of the semiotic chora by re-inscribing it as an intervention in the context of two important postmodern debates. The first debate relates to the philosophical problem of “the beginning before the Beginning.” The second concerns the necessity and possibility of mediation between incommensurable entities: the “demonic” and the social, desire and the Law, material production and representation. I contend: that the introduction of the chora in RPL is part of Kristeva's (...) effort to restore the legacy of a materialist economy of the beginning, as this is glimpsed in Plato's Timaeus from which Kristeva borrows her controversial term; and that the chora constitutes an attempt on Kristeva's part to explore a third space of ambiguous relationality in the context of which our transcendence to the “demonic” lies less “beyond us” than “in-between.”. (shrink)

The South African mining industry is challenged by the need to address a number of legacy issues that promote a “rear view mirror view” of the industry and fan discontent leading to potential policy change. This article considers how this industry can engage more constructively and proactively with its past by outlining the choices for an overarching remedial theory and forms of engagement. After considering how the South African mining industry fared before the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the article (...) examines recent conflicts in which the legacies of migrant labour and silicosis have been implicated. The article concludes that the past is unlikely to be addressed through a uniform process, and that the industry would do better to be more attentive to the remedial theories and limitations and opportunities inherent in multiple forms of engagement, as these manifest in flashpoints of conflict that invoke legacy issues. (shrink)

: Judgment -- Moral and ethical aspects. The application of "thick" ethical concepts is best understood as a process of reflective rather than deductive judgment. Taking the form "B is as X as A," where X is a thick ethical concept and A and B are narrative wholes unified through X (for example, "Those who hid Jews from the Nazis were as brave as Achilles"), reflective judgment opens thick ethical concepts to transformation. Though interpretive, such reflective judgment may still be (...) able to provide validity without recourse to "thin," purportedly context-neutral terms. (shrink)

The application of “thick” ethical concepts is best understood as a process of reflective rather than deductive judgment. Taking the form “B is as X as A,” where X is a thick ethical concept and A and B are narrative wholes unified through X, reflective judgment opens thick ethical concepts to transformation. Though interpretive, such reflective judgment may still be able to provide validity without recourse to “thin,” purportedly context-neutral terms.

This paper examines the political significance of discursive activity in the private sphere in the thought of Hannah Arendt, Václav Havel, and Victor Klemperer. Against criticisms of Arendt which claim that she pays too much attention to the public sphere and consequently misses the importance of the private sphere in her analysis of political action, this paper highlights important insights in Arendt’s writing on family and friendship and the ability of these relationships to act as havens where discourse can thrive. (...) What emerges from the analysis is a rich agonistic discourse ethics. The paper employs the respective thought of Havel and Klemperer to highlight Arendt’s work on the political significance of private virtues for promoting an awareness of responsibility. This position is then defended against the criticisms of discourse ethics offered by Chantal Mouffe. (shrink)

Illness and trauma challenge self-narratives. Traumatized individuals, unable to speak about their experiences, suffer in isolation. In this paper, I explore Kristeva’s theories of the speaking subject and signification, with its symbolic and semiotic modalities, to understand how a person comes to speak the unspeakable. In discussing the origin of the speaking subject, Kristeva employs Plato’s chora (related to choreo , “to make room for”). The chora reflects the mother’s preparation of the child’s entry into language and forms an interior (...) darkroom, the reservoir of lived experience, from which self-narratives issue. Unable to speak of their suffering, traumatized individuals need someone to help them make room for a time of remembrance, someone who is a willing and capable listener. I call such a person a healing witness . Through the mediating presence of the healing witness, fragmented memories of trauma are recreated and incorporated into self-narratives that are sharable with others. Unfortunately, opportunities for witnessing are vanishing. In the last section, I examine the failure of modern media and communication technologies to bear (“hold,” “carry,” “transport”) acts of witnessing. I argue that they perturb the semiotic. According to Kristeva, meaning arises from the dialectical tension between the semiotic (drives and affects) and the symbolic (logic and rules) and is threatened by arid discourse, psychosomatic illnesses, and outbreaks of violence when the semiotic is not represented . Unless we open technology to the imaginary, we risk losing the capacity to bear witness to one another and to create narratives and connections that are meaningful. (shrink)

In the 1980s extra-parliamentary social movements and critical theories of race, class, and gender added a new sociocultural understanding of justice—recognition—to the much older socioeconomic one. The best-known form of the struggle for recognition is the identity politics of disadvantaged groups. I argue that there is still another option to conceptualize their predicament, neglected in recent political philosophy, which understands exclusion not in terms of injustice, more particularly a lack of sociocultural recognition, but in terms of a lack of freedom. (...) I draw my inspiration from Hannah Arendt's model of political action. Arendt diagnoses exclusion not solely as a mode of injustice, but as a lack of participation and public freedom. Consequently, she advocates a struggle for participation, political equality, and freedom as a strategy for emancipation or empowerment. Arendt could help feminists see that collective empowerment is made possible not by a shared identity (the target of poststructuralist critics) but by common action in the service of a particular worldly issue or common end. In other words, feminists would do well to appreciate the revolutionary quality and heritage of the feminist movement better, that is, its character as a set of practices of freedom. (shrink)

: This essay offers a reflection on Arendt's notion of radical evil, arguing that her later understanding of the banality of evil is already at work in her earlier reflections on the nature of radical evil as banal, and furthermore, that Arendt's understanding of the "banality of radical evil" has its source in the very event that offers a possible remedy to it, namely, the event of natality. Kristeva's recent work (2001) on Arendt is important to this proposal insofar as (...) her notion of "abjection" illuminates Arendt's claim that understanding the superfluousness of the modern human being is inseparable from grasping the emergence of radical evil. In the final part of the essay, I argue that Arendt's "politics of natality" emerges from out of these two inseparable moments of the event of natality, offering the only possible remedy to the threat of radical evil by modifying our relationship to temporality. (shrink)

This essay offers a reflection on Arendt's notion of radical evil, arguing that her later understanding of the banality of evil is already at work in her earlier reflections on the nature of radical evil as banal, and furthermore, that Arendt's understanding of the “banality of radical evil” has its source in the very event that offers a possible remedy to it, namely, the event of natality. Kristeva's recent work on Arendt is important to this proposal insofar as her notion (...) of “abjection” illuminates Arendt's claim that understanding the superfluousness of the modem human being is inseparable from grasping the emergence of radical evil. In the final part of the essay, I argue that Arendt's “politics of natality” emerges from out of these two inseparable moments of the event of natality, offering the only possible remedy to the threat of radical evil by modifying our relationship to temporality. (shrink)

In this article, we explore the role of film in educational settings and argue that testimony and narrative are dependent upon each other for developing ethical judgments. We use the film 12 Angry Men to enhance our thesis that the emotional response that sometimes is intended in using film as testimonies in classrooms requires a specific listening; a listening that puts pupils at risk when they relate testimonies to their own life narratives. The article raises the importance of listening in (...) training narrative ethos in relation to violence witnessed in film. The article contributes by enhancing an understanding of a relational dimension to testimony and narrative, which, in an Arendtian sense, is also put forward as a political relation. (shrink)

Human Rights Education (HRE) has traditionally been articulated in terms of cultivating better citizens or world citizens. The main preoccupation in this strand of HRE has been that of bridging a gap between universal notions of a human rights subject and the actual locality and particular narratives in which students are enmeshed. This preoccupation has focused on ‘learning about the other’ in order to improve relations between plural ‘others’ and ‘us’ and reflects educational aims of national identity politics in citizenship (...) education. The article explores the learning of human rights through narratives in relations, drawing on Hannah Arendt and Sharon Todd. For this re-thinking of relations in learning human rights, the article argues that HRE needs to address both competing historical narratives on the drafting of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR) as well as unique life narratives of learners. (shrink)

The paper briefly analyzes the main aspects of the genesis of Arendt’s concept of natality, and the reasons that led her to claim natality as a fundamental concept of political thought. 'Natality' is defined as the “biological” birth of the man in the world, and/or the capacity of beginning something new. If the factual birth is defined naturalistically, it can contradict randomness of action as the capacity of beginning something new. The connection between the two aspects of natality goes back (...) to Augustine who was Arendt’s interlocutor throughout all of her research life. The genealogy of natality allows us to subject the problem of participation and the relation of political thought of Arendt to the philosophical criticism of biopolitics. Two definitions of life, natural life, and life in its political measurement, strictly correspond to the two main aspects of natality. Natality is a concept which allows to consider the political to be a function of life. The most probable explanation for paradoxicality of Arendt’s reflections on natality is their messianic orientation, which could be attributed to Arendt’s involvement into the theological subjects via Augustine. The stable relation between birth and possibility of free action arises only in the case of a normal theological ontologization of Christmas. (shrink)