Hannah arendt: life is a narrative, paperback/julia kristeva

In this volume, based on the series of Alexander Lectures she delivered at the University of Toronto, Julia Kristeva explores the philosophical aspects of Hannah Arendts work: her understanding of such concepts as language, self, body, political space, and life.

Kristevas aim is to clarify contradictions in Arendts thought as well as correct misapprehensions about her political and philosophical views.

The first two chapters describe how Arendt followed an original conception of human narrative, such that life, action, and even thought, are only human when they can be narrated and thus shared with other persons who, through the evocation of memory, complete the story and make history into a condensed sign, into a revelation of the who.

The third chapter concentrates on Arendts work in relation to her twentieth-century contemporaries, especially Isak Dinesen, Brecht, Kafka, and Nathalie Sarraute.

In the last two chapters, on the body and the Kantian concept of judgment, Kristeva offers a subtle critical exploration of Arendts ignoring of the world of the unconscious opened up by psychoanalysis, an exploration that, paradoxically, reveals the political force of Arendts acceptance of herself as woman and Jew.

Kristevas account of Arendts philosophy of narrative is clear, coherent, forceful, and often impassioned.

Much has been written in North America about Arendts political work, but little about her more philosophical endeavours.

Hannah Arendt: Life Is a Narrative makes a compelling case that Arendt may be the twentieth centurys only true political philosopher.