Revenge

Welcome to the Revenge project home page. This inter- and multi-disciplinary research and publications project seeks to explore the multi-layered ideas and actions of vengeance or revenge. The project aims to explore the nature of revenge, its relationship with issues of justice, and its manifestation in the actions of individuals, groups, communities and nations. The project will also consider the history of revenge, its ‘legitimacy’, the ‘scale’ of vengeful actions and whether revenge has (or should have) ‘limits’. Representations of revenge in film, literature, tv, theatre and radio will be analysed; cultural ‘traditions’ of retaliation and revenge will be considered. The role of mercy, forgiveness and pardon will be assessed.

The project will critically engage with a number of core themes:

• the nature of revenge
• the history of vengeance
• the role of revenge
• revenge, vengeance, retaliation: to avenge
• justice and revenge; redressing the balance, just desert
• betrayal, humiliation and revenge
• revenge and the individual; revenge and the group; revenge and the nation
• revenge in literature and the arts
• revenge in music
• revenge in tv, film, radio and theatre: the nemesis
• mercy, forgiveness, pardon
• case studies: individuals, communities, nations

Related themes will also be identified for development and exploration. Out of our deliberations it is anticipated that a series of related cross context research projects will develop.