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Perspectives on Evil
From Banality to Genocide
Series: - At the Interface / Probing the Boundaries, Volume: 103
Volume Editor:
The question of evil is one of the oldest and most intensely studied topics in intellectual history. In fiction, legend and mythology the boundary between good and evil is often depicted as clear-cut, at least to the reader or listener, who is supposed to understand such tales as lessons and warnings. Evil is something that must be avoided by the hero in some cases and vanquished in others; it is either the exact opposite of the expected good behaviour, or its complete absence. Even so, for the characters in these didactic fictions, it turns out to be deceptively easy to fall to the infernal, âdarkâ side. This volume draws on the expertise of an interdisciplinary group of contributors to chart events and deeds of an âevilâ nature that have been lived in the (recent) past and have become part of history, from individual to institutionalised evil.
Kanta Dihal, D.Phil. (2018), Oxon., is Principal Investigator on the Global AI Narratives project at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, University of Cambridge. She is co-editor of AI Narratives (Oxford University Press, 2020).
Notes on Contributors
Introduction
âKanta Dihal
Part 1
The Banality and the Familiarity of Evil
1 From Victims to Perpetrators: the Banality of Evil in Jonathan Littellâs The Kindly Ones
âDamian Catani
2 Unspeakable Banality: Discourse in Dispute
âCassie Pedersen
Part 2
Genocide in Rwanda
3 In Plain Sight: the Ethics of Proximity in the Holocaust and the Rwandan Genocide
âSarah Gendron
4 On the Role of Nation-States in Regulating Evil: a Case Study on Rwanda
âSally Nadeau
5 Extraordinary Forgiveness
âJennifer Vanderheyden
Part 3
Capitalism and the Socio-Psychology of Evil
6 Late Capitalism, Psychopathy and the Ontology of Evil
âHelen Patey
7 Psychologising Evil in the Media: a Market-Like Exchange of Political Responsibility for Isolation in the Greek Crisis Environment
âSophia Kanaouti
8 The Fury of âRessentimentâ: Binary Codes, Evil and Society
âSpiros Gangas
9 On the Usefulness of Being Unrealistic: a Critique of Freudâs Arguments against Neighbour Love
âRegan Lance Reitsma
Part 4
Dehumanization, the Law and the Prison
10 Socio-Spatial Scripts: Evil and the Contestation of Space and Being
âRallie Murray
11 The Intersection between Evil and Architecture: Environment and Agency
âRobert W. Butler
12 Choosing between Two Evils: a Philosophical Consideration of the Defences of Necessity and Duress in English Law
âStephen Banks
Index
Introduction
âKanta Dihal
Part 1
The Banality and the Familiarity of Evil
1 From Victims to Perpetrators: the Banality of Evil in Jonathan Littellâs The Kindly Ones
âDamian Catani
2 Unspeakable Banality: Discourse in Dispute
âCassie Pedersen
Part 2
Genocide in Rwanda
3 In Plain Sight: the Ethics of Proximity in the Holocaust and the Rwandan Genocide
âSarah Gendron
4 On the Role of Nation-States in Regulating Evil: a Case Study on Rwanda
âSally Nadeau
5 Extraordinary Forgiveness
âJennifer Vanderheyden
Part 3
Capitalism and the Socio-Psychology of Evil
6 Late Capitalism, Psychopathy and the Ontology of Evil
âHelen Patey
7 Psychologising Evil in the Media: a Market-Like Exchange of Political Responsibility for Isolation in the Greek Crisis Environment
âSophia Kanaouti
8 The Fury of âRessentimentâ: Binary Codes, Evil and Society
âSpiros Gangas
9 On the Usefulness of Being Unrealistic: a Critique of Freudâs Arguments against Neighbour Love
âRegan Lance Reitsma
Part 4
Dehumanization, the Law and the Prison
10 Socio-Spatial Scripts: Evil and the Contestation of Space and Being
âRallie Murray
11 The Intersection between Evil and Architecture: Environment and Agency
âRobert W. Butler
12 Choosing between Two Evils: a Philosophical Consideration of the Defences of Necessity and Duress in English Law
âStephen Banks
Index
All interested in interdisciplinary humanities, Holocaust studies, genocide, war crimes, capitalism, and evil in fiction; undergraduate or Masterâs students working on interdisciplinarity; the Holocaust; genocide; the financial crisis; and law.