The Case of Eichmann Restaged: Arendt, Evil, and the Complexity of Mimesis


In The Case of Eichmann Restaged, Nidesh Lawtoo reframes Hannah Arendt’s evaluation of the “banality of evil” in light of Eichmann’s mimetic psychology, which Arendt intuited but did not fully articulate.

Rather than considering the banality of evil as symptomatic of Eichmann’s “inability to think,” the essay foregrounds the affective, contagious, and, in this sense, mimetic tendencies at play in Eichmann’s personality (from Latin, persona, theatrical mask). This move is instrumental to articulate a middle path between Arendt’s theoretical diagnostic of Eichmann as “terrifyingly normal” and Bettina Stangneth’s recent historical account of Eichmann as a “fanatical National Socialist.” My wager is that the ancient problematic of mimēsis (from Greek, mimos, mime) casts a new and original light on the psychic foundations of a type of evil that is as relevant to understand the psychology of fascism in the past century as its rising shadow in the present century. Article also available here

Inaugural Lecture: Nidesh Lawtoo: ‘Homo Mimeticus. Sameness and Difference Replayed.’

In this Inaugural Lecture, PI of ERC-funded HOM Project Nidesh Lawtoo revisits the legendary 1966 Johns Hopkins Conference, “The Languages of Criticism and the Sciences of Man,” an event which was meant to introduce structuralism in the US, yet ended up inaugurating what became known as poststructuralism instead. At one remove, replaying mimesis in the company of Derrida and Girard half a century later still provides a genealogical starting point to rethink the all too human tendency to imitate characteristic of Homo Mimeticus.

November 7, 2019, Institute of Philosophy, Kardinaal Mercierzaal, 5-7pm (followed by reception).

Book launch of (New) Fascism (2019)

In conversation with Wojciech Kaftanski, Nidesh Lawtoo presents his last book, (New) Fascism (MSU P 2019) at the Institute of Philosophy (Husserl Archives, KU Leuven, October 2019). A diagnostic of crowd behavior, mythic identifications, and mimetic contagion constitutive of the growing shadow of fascism.

Conrad’s Shadow Wins Adam Gillon Award

We’re pleased to announce that Nidesh Lawtoo’s book Conrad’s Shadow: Catastrophe, Mimesis, Theory (MSU P, 2016) wins the Adam Gillon Award in Conrad Studies for best book of 2015-2017 (co-winner), a prize delivered by the Joseph Conrad Society of America. You can read the introduction here.