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When The Canon Backfires: Deconstructing The Centrality Of Hannah Arendt To Human Rights Critical Theory, Nicholas Alexander Lynch
When The Canon Backfires: Deconstructing The Centrality Of Hannah Arendt To Human Rights Critical Theory, Nicholas Alexander Lynch
Senior Projects Spring 2017
Hannah Arendt's name and ideas are pervasive in Human Rights critical theory. In fact, Arendt is one of the few scholars we can confidently situate within the Human Rights canon in 2017. Contemporary "re-readings" of The Human Condition and The Origins of Totalitarianism tend to appropriate Arendtian ideas in the attempt to create a theoretical basis for universal rights. Nevertheless, Arendt wrote a defense of racial segregation in the American South, and held personal views that contradict most contemporary notions of social justice. In this paper, I take a deconstructive approach to the reactionary assumptions about humanity and justice that …