UNIVERSITATEA DIN BUCURETI DEPARTAMENT CATEDRA UNESCO PENTRU SCHIMBURI INTERCULTURALE I INTERRELIGIOASE Program de Master: Comunicare i Management Intercultural

l Specializarea: Comunicare intercultural

Lucrare curs Apport des femmes aux cultures europeennes

Julia Kristeva- Le Genie Feminin

- La banalite du mal-

Masterand: uu Georgiana An II, Sem. II

Bucureti 2012

I. Julia Kristeva Linguist, novelist, archaeologist of language, Kristeva paces for over thirty years the vast palaces of language and human symbolic universe in different forms. She has several major works in literature, semiotic and linguistic, but the originality of the work of Kristeva is probably the psychoanalytic contribution it makes to the field of language and thus, her contribution development of psychoanalysis in her analysis of language. Insanity, language, rebellion, love and feminine themes remain her hinges. This holds true of her latest work, a trilogy centered on the theme of "feminine genius". Three places will define what "feminine genius": the life, madness and words. Three authors correspond to these three places, "more sensitive" of the twentieth century: Hannah Arendt, Melanie Klein and Colette. From a prophetic tone, Kristeva announces an era of women's to come: le sicle prochain sera fminin pour le meilleur ou pour le pire . The "genius", that extraordinary faculty who once gave you were blessed by the gods, has now evolved into a unique ability to innovate. It will be understood and the trilogy begins with Hannah Arendt, who has made this ability the center of his theory of action. Genius is one who knows how to innovate, more specifically, the singular genius which characterizes the person's own experiences, "excesses surprising"(les excs surprenantsp.8 ) that there arise beyond a world of increasingly standardized. Historically, women seem to have been rejected in this category, by virtue of their special gift of motherhood. The experience can be a "harmony with the species' radically different the feminine men, but this difference just adds to the many difficulties to show. Undeniably, parents may be natural geniuses of love and dedication, but, more importantly, a way to live the life of the mind gives them a "genius of their own" .

II. The banality of evil Also in the moral context, Julia Kristeva reads and interprets the controversial portrait made by Hannah Arendt to officer Eichmann - for which she was accused of antisemitism. It epitomizes what Arendt called "the banality of evil". In 1961, Arendt lived another disturbing event when it was present, as a special correspondent for the New Yorker, at the trial in Jerusalem of the Nazi criminal Adolf Eichmann. With the controversy that followed the receipt of the book Eichmann in Jerusalem, which shook a lot, Arendt was brought to forge a new concept of the banality of evil Otto Adolf Eichmann (b. March 19, 1906, Solingen, German Empire - d June 1, 1962, the prison in Ramla, Israel) was a German Nazi, the degree of ObersturmbannfhrerSS. He organized and led the final solution - extermination of 6 million Hebrew between 1940-1945. The Nuremberg Trials was sentenced to death in absentia as a great war criminal. Israel was caught Mosadul retried at a court in Jerusalem sentenced to death by hanging and executed in prison in Ramla. The political commentator becomes a narrator and portrays the biography of an ordinary German, "nor poor in spirit, nor indoctrinated nor cynical." In other words, a normal person, and, in fact, mediocre. During the entire process, she just seems he is unable to distinguish right from wrong. As an additional argument, Arendt Eichmann served language, full of stereotyped formulas, she could not identify any single sentence that was not a cliche. He spoke as quote phrases learned before, or as if responding to orders. In face of such lack of personality and authenticity, Arendt puts, rightly question whether one can speak of consciousness to Eichmann. This is the phenomenon that led to the "crystallization" of socio-political conditions of Nazi totalitarianism, namely the eradication of thinking human being, bringing it to impossible to think only, and so docile that it provides that superiors give orders. Through Eichmann example, Arendt shows that, without being sadistic monsters or torturers towels, most of those who have made Nazism shared the "trivial" condition of giving up their thinking and feelings. In other words, Eichmann is a concrete illustration of handling people, that is a hallmark of totalitarianism:

without the proper time, he gives evidence of lack of imagination. Kristeva identifies here Arendts agreement to define the fate of Hannah as a postulation and acceptance of right, in Jewish tradition. Believing in good would mean more than a thought accession, would mean faith itself in thought. Kristeva notice that since the work The Origins of Totalitarianism, Arendt does not see radical evil as an originating sin but as historical and political path to annihilate human thinking; this means the annihilation of spontaneity with the purpose to destroy part of humanity.In the totalitarian system, as in the Eichmann case, it's about thinking destruction. Critics reproach her the freely tone and reject ideas that comprise the three main themes of work: the Arendts reproach that Eichmanns judgment was a theatrical one and its purpose was the propaganda; criticism of the Jewish councils accused to have participated in the deportation of fellow believers; the portrait of Eichmann,in which the criminal personality is minimized in favor of the concept of banality of evil . Hannah defend herself saying that the tone of the book expresses anger and an ironic response against evil. According to Julia Kristeva , Arendt did not ever blamed Hebrew people for the tragedy experienced by them. Hannah Arendt by Eichmann image provided of guilt. Eichmann in Jerusalem, The 'banality of evil and the concept of thoughtlessness are used by Arendt to think about the nature of Eichmanns actions and aims, the state of his conscience and responsibility for the actions of criminal regimes in general. That Eichmann should not be seen as a monster is important to Arendt in the sense that Eichmann stated himself in the court that he had always tried to abide by Kant's categorical imperative. He attempted to follow the spirit of the laws he carried out, thinking that the legislator himself would approve it. According to Eichmann, the legislator was Hitler and so he claimed this changed when he was charged with carrying out the final Solution, at this point Arendt says "he had ceased to live according to Kantian principles, that he had known it, and that he had consoled himself with the thoughts that he no longer was master of his own deeds, that he was unable to change anything. In his entire life, that he was lying in the middle of mountains of corpses just thinking on the epaulets and without having any minimum sense

Eichmann was a joiner, in that he joined organizations in order to define himself, and had difficulties thinking for himself without doing so. Eichmann's refusal to read the book of Nabukov, Lolita , is seen by Arendt as another proof of the lack of spontaneity, freedom and the absence of own thinking . Eichmann's inability to think for himself was exemplified by his consistent use of stock phrases and self-invented clichs. Inability to speak was closely related to the inability to think. This officialese demonstrated his unrealistic worldview and crippling lack of communication skills. Arendt confirmed several points where Eichmann actually claimed he was responsible for certain atrocities, even though he lacked the power and or expertise to take these actions. Moreover, Eichmann made these claims even though they hurt his defense, hence Arendt's remark that "Bragging was the vice that was Eichmann's undoing" Kristeva says that it is possible that Arendt observations on the absence of thought may be inspired by the works about the relationship between thought and language of her contemporaries. Banality is not innocence, and she agrees with death penalty, which she sees it as the solution to punish crimes and not the person unable to distinguish right from wrong. For Arendt, Eichmann is a concrete illustration of handling people, and that is a hallmark of totalitarianism. But even more alarming is the finding that the commonplace seems to be more frightening as it is found in normal people, with perfect consciousness, who commit crimes of a new genre. Very interesting is that Kristeva puts wonder whether these people, belonging to a hypertechnicist society, are some virtual Eichmanns. In conclusion. Julia Kristeva points out that for Hannah Arendt, the source of radical evil is thus in the experience of desolation in the loss of space between people, which is necessary for the creation of a common world and also of all political life.