Forgiveness and Retribution

Judith Butler's book, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence is considered her most impassioned and personal book to date. In it she offers a profound appraisal of the post 9/11 world and the reactions which followed, critiquing the responses which followed the attack and suggesting instead that mourning can inspire solidarity and a quest for global justice.

In conversation with her will be filmmaker and writer, Udi Aloni, whose latest film, 'Forgiveness', concerns residents of a psychiatric hospital which is built on the ruins of the Palestinian village Deir Yassin. The site elicits a dialogue of the loss felt on both sides, offering a glimpse of a world where the ghosts of the past can be heard. Philosopher Slavoj Zizek described the film as “maybe the most beautiful, powerful and important film ever made about the tragedies of the region”.

One of contemporary theory’s foremost thinkers, Judith Butler is Maxine Elliot Professor in the Departments of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley. Her work focuses on cultural and literary theory, philosophy, psychoanalysis, feminism and sexual politics.

Udi Aloni's projects in films and in visual arts always explore the fascinating discourse that takes place between theology and politics. His book, Gilgul Mechilot, and his film, Local Angel, include correspondences with pre-eminent philosophers who refer to him as a revolutionary thinker.