Margaret Sönser Breen

Richard Paul Hamilton

Written across the disciplines of art history, literature, philosophy, sociology, and theology, the ten essays comprising the collection all insist on multidimensional definitions of evil. Taking its title from a moment in Shakespeare's Tempest when Prospero acknowledges his responsibility for Caliban, this collection explores the necessarily ambivalent relationship between humanity and evil. To what extent are a given society's definitions of evil self-serving? Which figures are marginalized in the process of identifying evil? How is humanity itself implicated in the production of evil? Is evil itself something fundamentally human? These questions, indicative of the kinds of issues raised in this collection, seem all the more pressing in light of recent world events. The ten essays were originally presented at the First Global Conference on Perspectives on Evil and Human Wickedness, held in March 2000 in Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University.

Perspectives on Evil and Human Wickedness

This Thing of Darkness

Written across the disciplines of law, literature, philosophy, and theology, this volume represents wide-ranging approaches to and understandings of evil and wickedness. Consisting of three sections - Grappling with Evil, Justice, Responsibility, and War and Blame, Murder, and Retributivism, - all the essays are inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary in focus.

An Interdisciplinary Approach

Understanding Evil

Fiona Peters

Genealogies of Identity examines issues of sex and sexuality across a range of critical and cultural perspectives. The volume considers historically specific discourses of sex and sexuality, their effect within public contexts such as the church and the workplace, and the link of those discourses to understandings of individual identity, citizenship, nation, and human rights. As well, the volume analyses representations of sexuality and desire in art, literature, theatre, and theory – representations that serve both to codify and to subvert social norms and aesthetic and theoretical traditions. Finally and more broadly, the volume attests to the critical importance of inter- and multidisciplinary approaches to understanding constructions of gender, sex, and sexuality. Genealogies of Identity consists of fifteen essays, versions of which were presented at the First Global Conference on Critical Issues in Sexuality, held in Salzburg, Austria, in October 2004.

Interdisciplinary Readings on Sex and Sexuality

Genealogies of Identity

Minding Evil: Explorations of Human Iniquity brings together fifteen essays, versions of which were presented at the Fifth International Conference on Evil and Wickedness, held in Prague in 2004. The volume examines evil and wickedness from a variety of disciplines, including criminology, cultural studies, gender studies, law, literature, peace studies, philosophy, psychology, and sociology. In so doingMinding Evil keeps in play the doubled meaning of its title: on the one hand, to tend to evil, that is, to oversee, cultivate, and deploy it; on the other hand, to be bothered by evil and so, in learning to identify or recognise it, to try to understand its workings and thus contain or control it and, perhaps, repair or undo it. While the essays taken together work to show the difficulty and at times the travesty of not being able to distinguish between the two meanings, it is this second meaning that remains key. What are the individual and collective responsibilities entailed in minding - being troubled by - evil? This is the central question of this volume.

Explorations of Human Iniquity

Minding Evil

Warren J. Blumenfeld

Since the 1990 publication of Gender Trouble, Judith Butler has had a profound influence on how we understand gender and sexuality, corporeal politics, and political action both within and outside the academy. This collection, which considers not only Gender Trouble but also Bodies That Matter, Excitable Speech, and The Psychic Life of Power, attests to the enormous impact Butler's work has had across disciplines. In analyzing Butler's theories, the contributors demonstrate their relevance to a wide range of topics and fields, including activism, archaeology, film, literature, pedagogy, and theory. Included is a two-part interview with Judith Butler herself, in which she responds to questions about queer theory, the relationship between her work and that of other gender theorists, and the political impact of her ideas. In addition to the editors, contributors include Edwina Barvosa-Carter, Robert Alan Brookey, Kirsten Campbell, Angela Failler, Belinda Johnston, Rosemary A. Joyce, Vicki Kirby, Diane Helene Miller, Mena Mitrano, Elizabeth M. Perry, Frederick S. Roden, and Natalie Wilson.

Margaret Sönser Breen

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