Political Evil and the Challenge of Forgiveness

Department of Politics and Centre for Applied Human Rights

Event Series     

At the beginning of the 21st Century, there is no scarcity of political events that one can easily associate with the label “evil”. Genocide, totalitarianism, and torture are just some of the many faces of evil that continue to confront us today. Understanding the complex nature of atrocities is an essential precondition for learning from past mistakes and preventing future catastrophes.

In organising this series of events, we were guided by Hannah Arendt’s great insight that storytelling can best disclose the complexity of evil and of complicity in it. The two films and the academic workshop problematize the various faces of political evil and highlight the challenges it poses to forgiveness. Our hope is that they will engage the audience in a nuanced reflection about the individual’s responsibility and capacity to resist and overcome political evil in its multiple impersonations.

Full details of the events can be found at: http://yorkhumanrightsfilmfestival.wordpress.com/

First event:‌

June 2nd, 20:30, City Screen Picture House (13 – 17 Coney St York)

Film projection: Forgiveness (2004, Ian Gabriel)

FREE ADMISSION   

Comments by Sonali Chakravarti, Wesleyan University (US) and Andrew Schaap, University of Exeter (UK).

Second event:

June 3rd, 12:00 – 17:00 D/L/116

Workshop in Political Theory: Emotions, Politics and Violence

Participants:

Sonali Chakravarti, Wesleyan University, US

Thomas Brudholm, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Andrew Schaap, University of Exeter, UK

Matthew Festenstein, University of York, UK

Lars Waldorf, University of York, UK

Mihaela Mihai, University of York, UK

3 June 2014 workshop programme (PDF , 90kb)

Third event:

June 10th, 20:30 City Screen Picture House (13 – 17 Coney St York)

Film projection: Hannah Arendt (2012, Margarethe von Trotta)

FREE ADMISSION   ‌

Comments by Werner Bonefeld and Mihaela Mihai, University of York.

Organizers: Mihaela Mihai, Politics Department and Paul Gready, Geraldine Richard, Hanna Rönty, Anne-Marie Lombard and Jessica Jandura, Centre for Applied Human Rights, University of York.