Understanding, Reconciliation, and Prevention - Rethinking Hannah Arendt's Representation of the Holocaust [electronic resource] = Comprehension, Reconciliation et Prevention - Repenser la representation de l'Holocauste de Hannah Arendt
出版項
2016
說明
1 online resource (359 p.)
附註
Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 78-01(E), Section: A
Adviser: David Novak
Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Toronto (Canada), 2016
Includes bibliographical references
In an effort to identify and assess the practical effects and ethical implications of representations of the Holocaust, this dissertation is a rethinking and evaluation of Hannah Arendt's representation of the Holocaust according to the goal that she herself set out to achieve in thinking and writing about the Holocaust, understanding, or, "the unmediated, attentive facing up to, and resisting of, reality- whatever it may be." By examining Arendt's confrontation with the Holocaust from within the context of systemic evil (which is how I argue she approached the Holocaust), and in light of her ultimate aim to "be at home in the world," I conclude that understanding entails both reconciling human beings to the world after the unprecedented evil of the Holocaust, as well as working towards its prevention in the future. Following my introductory chapter, where I argue that Arendt provided an overall representation of the Holocaust, and delimit the criteria of reconciliation and prevention, each subsequent chapter is dedicated to an aspect I identify as central to her representation of the Holocaust: Her claim that totalitarianism was unprecedented; that the evil exemplified by Adolf Eichmann was "banal;" and that the Jewish Councils "cooperated" with the Nazis in the destruction of their communities. Each of these chapters presents this aspect of Arendt's representation, considers it in light of its responses, criticisms, and limitations, and asks whether it fulfills the criteria of reconciliation and prevention. In my concluding chapter, I consider where Arendt's overall representation leaves us in light of these criteria, and the framework I have proposed
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Mich. : ProQuest, 2017
