Guilt : a force of cultural transformation /
Kellenbach, Katharina von,1960-editor.
Buschmeier, Matthias,editor.
"The book investigates the role of guilt in the global discussion over locally specific legacies of mass violence and injustice. Guilt is an indispensable element in human social and emotional life that surfaces as a central phenomenon in the cultural politics of memory, transitional justice, and the aftermath of violence. The nuances and complexities of various national and historical guilt configurations fosters insight into guilt's transformative possibilities. The book interweaves specific case studies with broader theoretical reflections on the conditions that turn the emotional, legal, and cultural phenomenon of guilt into a culturally transformative dynamic that repairs relationships, equalizes power dynamics, demands new social orders, and creates literary, artistic, and religious productions and performances. The authors examine different case studies on the basis of discipline-specific definitions of guilt, ranging from psychology to law, philosophy to literature, religion, history and anthropology. The contributors generally approach guilt less as a personal emotion than as a socio-legal, moral and culturally ambivalent force that mandates ritual performance, political negotiation, legal adjudication, artistic and literary representation, as well as intergenerational transmission. The book calls for a more nuanced understanding of the world's-and of history's-diversity of guilt concepts and the cultivation of cultural strategies to negotiate guilt relations in specific religious, cultural, and local ways"--
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Introduction: Guilt as a Force of Cultural Transformation -- 1. Guilt as a Positive Motivation for Action? On Vicarious Penance in the History of Christianity -- 2. White Guilt in the Summer of Black Lives Matter -- 3. From Shame to Guilt: Indonesian Strategies against Child Marriage -- 4. Historical and Survivor Guilt in the Incorporation of Refugees in Germany -- 5. The Productivity of Guilt in Criminal Law Discourse -- 6. Making Guilt Productive: The Case for Restorative Justice in Criminal Law -- 7. Guilt with and without Punishment: On Moral and Legal Guilt in Contexts of Impunity -- 8. Post-​War Justice for the Nazi Murders of Patients in Kherson, Ukraine: Comparing German and Soviet Trials -- 9. Rituals of Repentance: Joshua Oppenheimer's The Act of Killing -- 10. Performing Guilt: How the Theater of the 1960s Challenged German Memory Culture -- 11. Guilty Dreams: Culpability and Reactionary Violence in Gujarat -- 12. The Guilt of Warriors -- 13. The Art of Apology: On the True and the Phony in Political Apology -- 14. Relationships in Transition: Negotiating Accountability and Productive Guilt in Timor-​Leste -- 15. Disputes over Germany's War Guilt: On the Emergence of a New International Law in World War I -- 16. The Absence of Productive Guilt in Shame and Disgrace: Misconceptions in and of German Memory Culture from 1945 to 2020.
"The book investigates the role of guilt in the global discussion over locally specific legacies of mass violence and injustice. Guilt is an indispensable element in human social and emotional life that surfaces as a central phenomenon in the cultural politics of memory, transitional justice, and the aftermath of violence. The nuances and complexities of various national and historical guilt configurations fosters insight into guilt's transformative possibilities. The book interweaves specific case studies with broader theoretical reflections on the conditions that turn the emotional, legal, and cultural phenomenon of guilt into a culturally transformative dynamic that repairs relationships, equalizes power dynamics, demands new social orders, and creates literary, artistic, and religious productions and performances. The authors examine different case studies on the basis of discipline-specific definitions of guilt, ranging from psychology to law, philosophy to literature, religion, history and anthropology. The contributors generally approach guilt less as a personal emotion than as a socio-legal, moral and culturally ambivalent force that mandates ritual performance, political negotiation, legal adjudication, artistic and literary representation, as well as intergenerational transmission. The book calls for a more nuanced understanding of the world's-and of history's-diversity of guilt concepts and the cultivation of cultural strategies to negotiate guilt relations in specific religious, cultural, and local ways"--
Guilt.
Moral motivation.
Social justice.