Bonnie Honig, lezing 2 - Forgiving

Spinoza Chair

Since 1995, the Philosophy Department of the University of Amsterdam has annually appointed an internationally renowned philosopher from outside the Netherlands as Spinoza Professor. Bonnie Honig is the current holder of the Spinoza Chair. Her work is based on political theory, literature, law, and film to reformulate questions regarding immigration, emergencies, democracy, and gender in agonistic and egalitarian terms.

Reading

In this lecture, Honig interprets the Greek tragedy Hippolytus as a drama about forgiveness. In the current political climate, ambitious fascism prides itself on its 'intransigence' and demands that we all remain bound by the M/F sex/gender binary assigned at birth. In response to this, Honig points to the mutual implication of forgiveness and metamorphosis in Euripides' tragedy, drawing on the work of language philosopher J.L. Austin and political theorist Hannah Arendt.