Guilt

Katharina von Kellenbach is Professor emerita of Religious Studies at St. Mary's College of Maryland and project coordinator at the Evangelische Akademie zu Berlin. She is the author of Anti-Judaism in Feminist Religious Writings, The Mark of Cain: Guilt and Denial in the Lives of Nazi Perpetrators, and Composting Guilt: The Purification of Memory after Atrocity. Matthias Buschmeier is an Associate Professor (Akademischer Oberrat) of German Literature at Bielefeld University, Germany. He has published widely on German and European Literature and the History of Knowledge from the 18th to 20th centuries. His areas of research include the relation between literature and politics, cultural theory, hermeneutics and pragmatism, philology, the historiography of world literature, and discourses of knowledge.

This is a bold and very welcome volume. Like the classics of Hannah Arendt and Karl Jaspers, but with a broader cultural outlook and greater disciplinary width, the book sustains comprehension, unfolds unrecognized complexities, and richly serves to qualify our conversation about the question (or rather questions) of guilt. Additionally, this is one of the best cases I have seen for the value of a carefully edited interdisciplinary volume.

• IntroductionMatthias Buschmeier and Katharina von Kellenbach Part I: Guilt as a Prosocial Force in Interpersonal Relations Guilt as a Positive Motivation for Action? On Vicarious Penance in the History of Christianity Meinolf Schumacher White Guilt in the Summer of Black Lives MatterLisa B. Spanierman From Shame to Guilt: Indonesian Strategies against Child MarriageNelly van Doorn-Harder Historical and Survivor Guilt in the Incorporation of Refugees in GermanyJohn Borneman Part II: Transforming Guilt Into (Restorative) Justice The Productivity of Guilt in Criminal Law DiscoursesKlaus Günther Making Guilt Productive: The Case for Restorative Justice in Criminal LawValerij Zisman Guilt With and Without Punishment: On Moral and Legal Guilt in Contexts of ImpunityDominik Hofmann Post-War Justice for the Nazi Murders of Patients in Kherson, Ukraine: Comparing German and Soviet TrialsTanja Penter Part III: Guilt as Creative Irritation Rituals of Repentance: Joshua Oppenheimer's "The Act of Killing"Katharina von Kellenbach Performing Guilt: How the Theater of the 1960s Challenged German Memory CultureSaskia Fischer Guilty Dreams: Culpability and Reactionary Violence in GujaratParvis Ghassem-Fachandi The Guilt of Warriors Susan Derwin Part IV: The Politics of Guilt Negotiations The Art of Apology: On the True and the Phony in Political ApologyMaria-Sibylla Lotter Relationships in Transition: Negotiating Accountability and Productive Guilt in Timor LesteVictor Igreja Negotiating Germany's War Guilt. On the Emergence of a New International Law in the First World WarEthel Matala de Mazza The Absence of Productive Guilt in Shame and Disgrace: Misconceptions in and of German Memory Culture from 1945-2020Matthias Buschmeier