The thesis deals with the specific problem of Hannah Arendt's positive political project which has never been a central topic for her. She rather reflects political phenomenon from ancient Greek polis to modern times of mass society in the second half of the 20th Century. She assumes that one of the human conditions is acting - political activity. On the one hand, this activity needs a specific space for demonstrating itself. On the other hand, this activity presupposes the equality of acting people. However, these presuppositions have been disfigured during the growth of the society. This thesis examines the positive political project of Hannah Arendt which stands as a remedy of disfigured political space. We start with Arendt's theory of freedom and contrast it with Isaiah Berlin's theory. Then we describe the concept of acting and explain why has been disfigured during modernity. Finally, we show why we can call Arendt's positive political project or regime as a democratic one. We identify two moments (moment of deliberation and moment of participation) which are essential for understanding Arendt's political project. Then we deal with the problem of elites which is explicitly in her thoughts. But we show an interpretation which is based on J. C. Isaac article that real political space for...

The main aim of this diploma thesis is analysis of the surveillance and the power relationships in the Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz. The thesis attempts to contribute to understanding of the surveillance operation and the power technologies in the Auschwitz by comparison of the Michel Foucault's theoretical concept of power and surveillance with the totalitarian power according to Hannah Arendt. These two concepts will constitute the main theoretical base of this thesis. The thesis attempts to characterize Nazi politics of possible visibility and displayability on the basis of Didi-Huberman's reflection of the Auschwitz-Birkenau visual representation. Keywords: Discipline. Surveillance. Hannah Arendt. Michel Foucault. Power. Totalitarianism.

The present study aims to create a deeper understanding of the cinematic representation of “evil”. Therefore, a special focus lies on contemporary historical fiction films whose stories are set in totalitarian systems with direct or indirect references to German history. This is interesting as the depiction in films influences the viewer's perspective and understanding of history. While many film narratives have very stereotypical imaginations of good and evil, there are also films that use a more observational perspective on the social dynamics that align with specific situations rather than address villains. As one of the main representatives of the Berlin School, Christian Petzold adopts such an observational perspective in his thematic trilogy “Love in the Times of Oppressive Systems”(Barbara, Phoenix, and Transit). In the three independent stories, he deals with the relationship between the male and female protagonists in different stages of oppression in German society, whereby the power structures in the oppressive systems influence human interactions and social situations of everyday life. Using these films as examples, I will look at the framing of evil in totalitarian systems. For this purpose, I will examine the characters and their constellations and individual and general threats, and their motivations for actions as they are played out in these film narratives by Petzold on a cinematographic and thematic level. By referring to Hannah Arendt's conceptualization of evil, the thesis accounts for the representation of “evil” as a multidimensional phenomenon, and how it resonates in the cinematography and historical imagination of Petzold’s films.

This dissertation explores how late medieval and early modern English culture understood the possibilities of experience inherent within our dying moments. I argue that, rather than approaching the moment of death as exclusively terrible, unbearable, or meaningless, as some literary scholars have claimed, many could instead hope to find within such moments the opportunity for what Erasmus called “glimmerings”—new revelations, actions, and experiences of the world. I explore how the drama of Shakespeare and Marlowe investigates both the promises and illusions of the glimmering worlds cast up in one’s dying moments. This project draws on the thought of Hannah Arendt to elucidate the actions, forms of life, and worlds that can be undertaken and sustained in the circumstances of dying. In Chapter One, I uncover the late medieval roots of an association between dying moments and worldly awareness, expressed in fifteenth-century English texts such as Nicholas Love’s Mirror of the Blessed Life of Christ, Thomas Hoccleve’s Learn to Die, the morality play The Castle of Perseverance, and Desiderius Erasmus’s Preparation to Death. My second chapter argues that sixteenth-century ars moriendi texts such as Thomas Lupset’s Way of Dying Well, Thomas Becon’s Sick Man’s Salve, The Book of Common Prayer’s “Order for the Burial of the Dead,” and John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments each provide strategies of dying that preserve both self and world from the deteriorating force of mortality. Chapter Three moves from theological to dramatic inquiries into the moment of death, examining how Marlowe’s tragedies The Jew of Malta and Doctor Faustus scrutinize the risks of dying in conditions of exposure, in contrast with the sheltering protections of dying in a little room. My fourth chapter takes up Shakespearean tragedy to illustrate how King Lear evaluates and dramatizes the consequences of William Perkins’ Salve for a Sick Man, which contends that we are unable to undertake meaningful action in our final moments. In my last chapter, I show how Shakespeare’s late plays, Pericles and The Winter’s Tale, consider whether, in the presence of death, one can claim flourishing life and feel at home in the world.

Diese Arbeit verbindet zwei Perspektiven, nämlich den Blick auf die soziale Praxis des digitalen Ungehorsams mit dem anhaltenden Diskurs über zivilen Ungehorsam in der politischen Theorie. Digitaler Ungehorsam entwickelte sich im Verlauf der Evolution digitaler Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien in überraschendem Facettenreichtum: vom BTX Hack des Chaos Computer Clubs über den Widerstand der Cypherpunks für die weltweite Verbreitung von Verschlüsselung hin zu Anonymous, Aaron Swartz und Edward Snowden. Reload Disobedience plädiert für eine Revision des dominierenden Verständnisses von zivilem Ungehorsam und stützt sich dabei auf Theorien von Hannah Arendt, Michael Walzer und Etienne Balibar. Viele Beispiele in der Geschichte des digitalen Ungehorsams werden diesem neuen Verständnis durchaus gerecht, doch gibt es gleichzeitig Faktoren, die weitere Fragen aufwerfen: Kann ziviler Ungehorsam anonym sein oder automatisiert durchgeführt werden? Wie verändert sich das kollektive Handeln, das maßgeblicher Teil der Tradition zivilen Ungehorsames ist, durch die globale Vernetzung? Um diese und andere Effekte digitalen Handelns zu verstehen, diskutiert die Autorin die Entscheidungen der digital Ungehorsamen sowie Möglichkeiten und Grenzen digitalen Handelns im Kontext demokratie-theoretischer Überlegungen. Eine Kernthese der Arbeit ist, dass ziviler Ungehorsam in digitalen Formen potentiell eine neue Direktheit des Politischen erzeugen kann. Gleichzeitig muss sich diese Praxis einer besonderen Unsicherheit sowie neuen Risiken und Herausforderungen stellen, um dem demokratischen Geist des zivilen Ungehorsams unter neuen Bedingungen gerecht zu werden. / This work combines two perspectives, namely the social and activist history of digital forms of disobedience with the ongoing discourse around civil disobedience in political theory. In the course of the internet’s evolution, digital disobedience developed in a surprisingly multifaceted nature: From cases like the BTX Hack of the Chaos Computer Club, to the Cypherpunks and their effort to spread encryption, from Anonymous to Aaron Swartz or Edward Snowden. This work argues for a broader understanding of civil disobedience than the mainstream in political thinking suggests based on arguments from a radical democratic line of thinking, inspired by Hannah Arendt, Michael Walzer and Etienne Balibar. Many cases of digital disobedience meet the spirit of this new understanding, while at the same time their digital nature provokes a new set of questions as well. For instance the question, if civil disobedience may be anonymous or even automated. How does the internet change collective action which is often seen as a core element of the tradition of civil disobedience? The author discusses the choices and principles behind digitally disobedient action as well as the possibilities and limits of digital action in the context of democratic theory. She shows that civil disobedience in digital action even develops a new directness of encounter that adds a new potential to this delicate form of political action. Nevertheless, digital practices of civil disobedience are at the same time precarious and faced with new risks and challenges, like automation of and the risk of elitist tech-avant-gardes overriding the democratic spirit that civil disobedience is rooted in.

Nesta dissertação de mestrado estudamos a trajetória da União dos Movimentos de Moradia de São Paulo (UMM-SP) durante a administração de Marta Suplicy à frente da Prefeitura Municipal de São Paulo (PMSP), entre os anos 2001 e 2004. O objetivo desse trabalho é entender os dilemas da vida democrática brasileira na atualidade a partir da relação política que foi estabelecida entre movimento social, partido político e governo, no referido período histórico. Desde a segunda metade da década de 90, o estudo das organizações populares começa a perder força no contexto acadêmico, fato que contraria a presença cada vez maior destes sujeitos políticos no cenário político nacional. Para entender os novos desafios postos pela conjuntura atual, retomamos a bibliografia acadêmica que aborda o assunto sob a perspectiva das conseqüências que a institucionalização traz ao modo de agir movimentista, e a ela acrescentamos a análise feita pela filósofa alemã Hannah Arendt dos novos desafios enfrentados pelo pensamento político democrático / This study deals with de political trajectory of the União dos Movimentos de Moradia de São Paulo (UMM-SP) during the government of Marta Suplicy, as the Mayor of São Paulo, between 2001 and 2004. The objective of this work was understand the dilemmas of the democratic life in the brazilian society nowadays since the relation establish between social movement, political partie and governaments in this period. Since the second half of the 90´s, the number of academic works related with popular organizations has decrease dramatic, even dow their presence in the political scenery has just rised. To understand the new challenges imposed by the today’s conjecture, we revisited the bibliography that deals with this kind of matter under the perspective of the consequences that the institucionalization of the movements was brought to their form of act. To a better understand of problems and virtues of democracy today, we based our questions on the thoughts of the german philosopher Hannah Arendt.

Nesta dissertação de mestrado estudamos a trajetória da União dos Movimentos de Moradia de São Paulo (UMM-SP) durante a administração de Marta Suplicy à frente da Prefeitura Municipal de São Paulo (PMSP), entre os anos 2001 e 2004. O objetivo desse trabalho é entender os dilemas da vida democrática brasileira na atualidade a partir da relação política que foi estabelecida entre movimento social, partido político e governo, no referido período histórico. Desde a segunda metade da década de 90, o estudo das organizações populares começa a perder força no contexto acadêmico, fato que contraria a presença cada vez maior destes sujeitos políticos no cenário político nacional. Para entender os novos desafios postos pela conjuntura atual, retomamos a bibliografia acadêmica que aborda o assunto sob a perspectiva das conseqüências que a institucionalização traz ao modo de agir movimentista, e a ela acrescentamos a análise feita pela filósofa alemã Hannah Arendt dos novos desafios enfrentados pelo pensamento político democrático / This study deals with de political trajectory of the União dos Movimentos de Moradia de São Paulo (UMM-SP) during the government of Marta Suplicy, as the Mayor of São Paulo, between 2001 and 2004. The objective of this work was understand the dilemmas of the democratic life in the brazilian society nowadays since the relation establish between social movement, political partie and governaments in this period. Since the second half of the 90´s, the number of academic works related with popular organizations has decrease dramatic, even dow their presence in the political scenery has just rised. To understand the new challenges imposed by the today’s conjecture, we revisited the bibliography that deals with this kind of matter under the perspective of the consequences that the institucionalization of the movements was brought to their form of act. To a better understand of problems and virtues of democracy today, we based our questions on the thoughts of the german philosopher Hannah Arendt.

Ce travail vise à scruter quatre lectures de Kafka dans la philosophie allemande. Pourquoi ces philosophes ont-ils rencontré et interprété Kafka ? La première hypothèse est d’ordre biographique : leurs découvertes de Kafka sont marquées par le sentiment d’une proximité personnelle à l’égard ce qu’il donne à lire. Kafka est l’écrivain d’un certain moment, où le rapport à la langue ne va pas de soi, où l’expérience de l’exil prédomine, et où les mutations historiques rendent les contours de la subjectivité flous. La seconde hypothèse est philosophique : leurs lectures se fondent sur la nécessité de philosopher autrement, afin d’intégrer ces mutations. On ne peut plus penser selon les catégories du sens, de l’identité, de la conscience - mais il faut accepter que le sujet découvre en lui un étranger. Le défi que Kafka dresse devant ces philosophes serait donc de pouvoir « penser la métamorphose ». Celle du sujet, mais aussi celle que subit la philosophie au contact de la littérature. Et enfin, celle que Kafka invente dans l’ensemble de son œuvre, dont nous montrons qu’elle est irriguée par le « devenir-animal ». / We are focusing on studying four readings of Kafka in german philosophy. Why have these philosophers met and interpreted Kafka ? Our first hypothesis is a biographical one : their reading of Kafka’s books are influenced by the feeling of a proximity between his life and their experiences. Kafka represents a crisis : in his work, the language is not innate anymore, experiencing exile is prevailing, the historical mutations affect the concept of subjectivity. The second hypothesis concerns the philosophy itself : because of these mutations, the traditional metaphysical categories of sense or consiousness are obsolete ideas. The subject is becoming a stranger. Kafka is challenging philosophers to « think out the metamorphosis », the subject’s metamorphosis, the philosophy’s metamorphosis, and finally, the one Kafka invented, which is everpresent in his works, the notion of a « becoming-animal ».

Cette thèse a pour objet l'étude de l'encadrement normatif de l'internement concentrationnaire. Ce concept désigne les règles et procédures produites et appliquées par les administrations concentrationnaires et encadrant le quotidien des détenus internés dans les camps de concentration nazis. Notre étude est pragmatique. Elle se fonde principalement sur l'analyse des archives des administrations concentrationnaires : les règles et procédures concernant l'internement des détenus édictées par les administrations centrales et leur application au niveau du camp de Buchenwald principalement. Cette approche permet de démontrer que l'internement du détenu n'est pas caractérisé par l'arbitraire. Il se déroule au contraire conformément à un encadrement normatif aux caractéristiques spécifiques. Malgré des imperfections formelles dues à leur fondement spécifique sur la Volonté du Führer (Führerwille), les règles et procédures concentrationnaires encadrent l'ensemble de l'internement du détenu : les contacts avec l'extérieur, la répression disciplinaire, le travail forcé et la mort. La participation du personnel SS et civil ou des détenus au fonctionnement du camp se fait ainsi conformément à un encadrement normatif. Cela explique en partie pourquoi les différents acteurs, croyant leurs actes fondés et justifiés par cet encadrement normatif d'allure pseudo-juridique, participèrent au fonctionnement des camps. / The object of this thesis is to study the normative framework of concentration camp internment. The term ‘normative framework’ refers to the rules and procedures established and applied by the concentration camp administrations and which governed the internment of those prisoners in Nazi concentration camps. Our study is pragmatic. It is based primarily on the analysis of concentration camps’ administrative archives: the rules and procedures issued by central administrations concerning the internment of prisoners and their application, mainly at the Buchenwald camp.This approach demonstrates that the period of internment was not characteristically arbitrary. Rather, it occurred in accordance with a normative framework with specific characteristics. Despite formal imperfections due to their specific foundation in the Führer’s Will (Führerwille), concentration camp rules and procedures governed the inmate’s entire internment: contacts with the outside, punishment, forced labor and death. The participation of SS members, or employees of firms using detainee labor or even detainees themselves, was carried out in accordance with a normative framework. This explains in part why the various actors, believing their actions grounded in and justified by this pseudo-legal framework, took part in camp operations.

I denna essä undersöker jag blickarnas betydelse i förskolan i relation till de yngsta barnen. För att få en kontrast som förtydligar och tillför mer komplexitet får mitt umgänge med hästar och ridning vara med. I min undersökning av blickarna utgår jag från en glidande skala mellan en varm mjuk blick och en kall hård blick. En klok erfaren pedagog vet vilken blick som passar när och kan snabbt läsa av olika situationer. Metoden för undersökandet blir egna erfarenheter, reflektioner över deltagande observationer där också barns teckningar blir ett medel för att få fatt på deras blickar på pedagogerna samt essäskrivandet. Essäskrivandet blir en undersökande metod som låter de egna reflektionerna, de deltagande observationerna och teorin bilda en väv av reflektioner och skapar nya tankar.  Det finns inte mycket forskning om blickens betydelse i förskolan, mer om hur vi använder blicken i olika sammanhang, både barn och pedagoger. Det finns studier om hur barn med funktionsnedsättningar som berör ögonkontakt agerar och om hur man använder blicken i olika situationer. Inom den praktiska kunskapens teori finns det forskning om blickar inom sjukvården som kan kallas kliniska men där de kombinerar faktakunskap med erfarenhet för att fatta kloka beslut. De teoretiska perspektiv som jag använder i min analys är filosofen Hannah Arendt och då främst hennes tankar om politiskt handlande och hur vi binds samman av en väv av relationer samt filosofen Maurice Merleau-Ponty och hans tankar om att jaget/subjektet och kroppen inte kan skiljas åt, vi är en kropp och vi har en kropp. Att kategorisera blickar är svårt och redan idén om den mjuka och den kalla blicken färgar tankarna. Med utgångspunkt i mitt material har jag valt ut några olika typer av blickar som man kan resonera runt, som också blir olika beroende på vilken som tar initiativet, barnet eller pedagogen. Jag låter blickarna speglas i omständigheter och mina valda filosofiska perspektiv samt mina erfarenheter med barnen men ibland också med hästar.  Blickar har betydelse både som de är direkt öga mot öga och som metaforer för ett sätt att förhålla sig till världen. Den här essän hoppas att kunna lyfta betydelsen av att diskutera hur vi använder våra blickar. / In this essay I examine the importance of the eyes in preschool in relation to the youngest children. To get a contrast that clarifies and adds more complexity, my interaction with horses and riding is included. In my examination of the gazes, I start from a sliding scale between a warm soft gaze and a cold hard gaze. A wise, experienced educator knows which gaze is suitable when and can quickly read different situations. The method of investigation becomes own experiences, reflections on participatory observations where children's drawings also become a means of catching their eyes on the educators and essay writing. Essay writing becomes an investigative method that allows one's own reflections, participatory observations and theory to form a web of reflections and create new thoughts. There is not much research on the importance of the gaze in preschool, more on how we use the gaze in different contexts, both children and educators. There are studies on how children with disabilities that concern eye contact act and on how to use the gaze in different situations. Within the theory of practical knowledge, there is research on gazes in healthcare that can be called clinical but where they combine factual knowledge with experience to make wise decisions. The theoretical perspectives that I use in my analysis are the philosopher Hannah Arendt and then mainly her thoughts on political action and how we are bound together by a web of relationships and the philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty and his thoughts that the self/subject and the body cannot be separated, we are a body, and we have a body. Categorizing glances is difficult and the very idea of the soft and the cold gaze colors the thoughts. Based on my material, I have selected a few different types of glances that you can reason around, which also become different depending on who takes the initiative, the child, or the educator. I let my eyes be reflected in circumstances and my chosen philosophical perspectives as well as my experiences with the children but sometimes also with horses. Glances are important both as they are directly face to face and as metaphors for a way of relating to the world. This essay hopes to highlight the importance of discussing how we use our gazes.