The author's starting point is the interweaving of forgiveness and resentment in the works of Jewish writers after the Holocaust, most especially Hannah Arendt and Jean Améry, to make sense of the catastrophe and to point to a way forward for both victims and perpetrators. The insights of these two writers and of several Jewish novelists and poets, including Bruno Schulz, Paul Celan, and Aharon Appelfeld, are used to develop accounts of forgiveness and resentment in other cases of mass atrocity around the world. The author offers a critical rereading of primary sources that aim to separate resentment from nonviolent resistance, and forgiveness from reconciliation. Forgiveness and resentment are not, as they might first appear, mutually exclusive. Together with Arendt, Améry, and Walter Benjamin, it is argued that it is through the interaction between them that victims of mass atrocity become agents of personal and cultural change. Together, forgiveness and resentment interrupt the present, reframe the past, and shape the future. They can reduce the chasm that separates memory and trust by fashioning new connections between identity and alterity, which can open paths to truly ethical coexistence for victims and perpetrators, and their descendants.

An assessment of the attempts to bring religious allegiances and perspectives to bear in responses to the mass atrocities of our time.

Most current talk of forgiveness and reconciliation in the aftermath of collective violence proceeds from an assumption that forgiveness is always superior to resentment and refusal to forgive. Victims who demonstrate a willingness to forgive are often celebrated as virtuous moral models, while those who refuse to forgive are frequently seen as suffering from a pathology. Resentment is viewed as a negative state, held by victims who are not "ready" or "capable" of forgiving and healing. Resentment's Virtue offers a new, more nuanced view. Building on the writings of Holocaust survivor Jean Améry and the work of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Thomas Brudholm argues that the preservation of resentment can be the reflex of a moral protest that might be as permissible, humane or honorable as the willingness to forgive. Taking into account the experiences of victims, the findings of truth commissions, and studies of mass atrocities, Brudholm seeks to enrich the philosophical understanding of resentment.

A nuanced range of interdisciplinary perspectives on the role of emotions in moral and political reactions to mass violence.

Christian theology and ethics have wrestled with the challenge to apply Jesus's central message of nonviolence to the injustices of this world. Is it not right to defend the persecuted by using violence? Is it unjust if the oppressed defend themselves--if necessary by the use of violence--in order to liberate themselves and to create a more just society? Can we leave the doctrine of the just war behind and shift all our attention toward the way of a just peace? In 2011 the World Council of Churches brought to a close the Decade to Overcome Violence, to which the churches committed themselves at the beginning of the century. Just peace has evolved as the new ecumenical paradigm for contemporary Christian ethics. Just peace signals a realistic vision of holistic peace, with justice, which in the concept of shalom is central in the Hebrew Bible as well as in the gospel message of the New Testament. This paradigm needs further elaboration. VU University gathered peacebuilding practitioners and experts from different parts of the world (Africa, Latin America, North America, Asia, and Europe) and from different disciplines (anthropology, psychology, social sciences, law, and theology)--voices from across generations and Christian traditions--to promote discussion about the different dimensions of building peace with justice.

This book traces the reverberations of genocide, forced displacement, and a legacy of loss in Bosnia and abroad.

Love's Forgiveness combines a discussion of the nature and ethics of forgiveness with a discussion—inspired by Kierkegaard—of the implications of considering interpersonal forgiveness as a 'work of love'. It introduces the reader to some key questions that have exercised recent philosophers of forgiveness, discussing the relationship between forgiveness and an extended notion of resentment; considering whether forgiveness should be conditional or unconditional (showcasing a particular understanding of the latter); and arguing that there are legitimate forms of third party forgiveness. It then introduces the idea of forgiveness as a work of love through a discussion of Kierkegaard, key New Testament passages on forgiveness, and some contemporary work on the philosophy of love. Drawing on both philosophy and the New Testament, it offers an understanding of forgiveness that incorporates both agapic love and a proper concern for justice. John Lippitt explores religious and secular uses of key metaphors for forgiveness, and the idea of forgivingness as a character trait, suggesting that seeking to correct for various cognitive biases is key to the development of such a virtue, and connecting it to other putative virtues, such as humility and hope. Lippitt draws on both Kierkegaard's discourse literature and contemporary philosophical work on these latter characteristics, before turning to a discussion of the nature of self-forgiveness. Throughout the book, the philosophical and theological literature is rooted in a discussion of various 'forgiveness narratives', including Helen Prejean's Dead Man Walking, Thordis Elva and Tom Stranger's South of Forgiveness, and Ian McEwan's Atonement.

What is the relationship between anger and justice, especially when so much of our moral education has taught us to value the impartial spectator, the cold distance of reason? In Sing the Rage, Sonali Chakravarti wrestles with this question through a careful look at the emotionally charged South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which from 1996 to 1998 saw, day after day, individuals taking the stand to speak—to cry, scream, and wail—about the atrocities of apartheid. Uncomfortable and surprising, these public emotional displays, she argues, proved to be of immense value, vital to the success of transitional justice and future political possibilities. Chakravarti takes up the issue from Adam Smith and Hannah Arendt, who famously understood both the dangers of anger in politics and the costs of its exclusion. Building on their perspectives, she argues that the expression and reception of anger reveal truths otherwise unavailable to us about the emerging political order, the obstacles to full civic participation, and indeed the limits—the frontiers—of political life altogether. Most important, anger and the development of skills needed to truly listen to it foster trust among citizens and recognition of shared dignity and worth. An urgent work of political philosophy in an era of continued revolution, Sing the Rage offers a clear understanding of one of our most volatile—and important—political responses.

A critical exploration of the steps taken to promote peace, reconciliation and justice in post-genocide Rwanda.