Mis/Representing Evil

…Mis/Representing Evil

…Evil in an Interdisciplinary Key

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…edited by
…Charlene P. E. Burns

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…ISBN: 978-1-904710-98-1
…£19.99

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…paperback
…317 pages

Description

This volume explores the problem of evil through interdisciplinary engagement with issues ranging from cosmological questions regarding justifications of divine goodness and the functions of Satan in Western thought to broad questions of power and moral responsibility from the political to popular cultural representations. Scholars from around theworld representing fields as diverse as philosophy, religious studies, psychology, theology, theatre arts, literature, media and communications studies have endeavoured here to produce a volume of essays which breaks new ground in interdisciplinary scholarship. Through active ‘conversation’ with other chapters included in the volume, the authors demonstrate the fruitfulness of collaborative engagement with the perennial questions of human existence.

Content

Preface

PART 1     Cosmic Explorations
Intimations of Coherence: Inter-Religious Reflections on Evil and the Goodness of God
Charlene P.E. Burns

Bulgakov’s Satan: Master and Margarita´s Minister of Justice
Natalia Vid

PART 2     Power, Politics and Persecution
There are No Good Torturers: Theatre of the Oppressed and the Problem of Evil
Richard J. Piatt, O.S.A.

Torture Ethics and Torture Narratives
Dónal P. O’Mathúna

Cruelty and Madness: Jacques Lacan Meets Paul M.A. Linebarger’s “Cordwainer Smith”
Pawel Stachura

Scions of Cyclops: Race, Millennial Optics, and the American Cult of the Sun
Darryl A. Smith

PART 3    Literary Mis/Representations
What Do We Want Them to Learn? Limited Discourses and Naive Protagonists in Holocaust Literature for Young People
Sue Page

The Burden of Responsibility and Guilt: Memoirs and Fiction on the ‘Grey Zone’
Bettine Siertsema

Kate McCann and Medea News Narratives
Nicola Goc

PART 4    Explanation, Justification, Accountability
Narrative, Character, and Judgment
Stephen B. Hawkins

Perceptions of the Evil Feminine
Michèle Huppert

Rational Explanations for Evil
William Andrew Myers

PART 5    Closer to Home – Entertaining Evil
Animating “The Forces of Evil”: Cartoons, Ideology and The Powerpuff Girls
Ewan Kirkland

Bad Fathers: Reading the Evil Father in Popular Culture Through Star Wars,  Spider-Man and Twin Peaks
Jason Bainbridge

Not Being or Belonging: Peter Pan’s Hidden Evils
Phil Fitzsimmons

Notes on Contributors

The Editor

Charlene Burns is Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Director, Chippewa Valley Dialogue on Science & Religion, Department of Philosophy & Religious Studies, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire,USA