Artistic Representations of Suffering: Rights, Resistance, and Remembrance

Artistic expression frequently engages with the question of suffering. In so doing, it confronts the gravity and complexity of the human condition. This volume investigates the relationship between art and suffering. In short, the contributors to this volume collectively demonstrate that suffering is an undisputed and shareable motivating experience. This collection features original essays that focus on the subject of art and suffering, including topics such as the representation of violence and the intersections of art and human rights. Some of the key questions explored are as follows: How has suffering motivated artists around the world? How have artists used their platforms to call attention to human rights abuses? How can suffering be incorporated responsibly and ethically in works of art? What role does art play in the struggle against violations of human dignity and the promotion of building a more equitable world? Each essay is complemented by full-color reproductions of artistic works that illustrate the concepts being discussed, including a graphic essay on the topic of "comfort women."

About the Author :
Mark Celinscak is the Louis and Frances Blumkin Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He is a historian of twentieth century Britain and Europe, specializing in war, Holocaust and genocide studies. He is the author of Distance from the Belsen Heap: Allied Forces and the Liberation of a Nazi Concentration Camp. Curtis Hutt is an associate professor of religious studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He is the Founding Executive Director of the UNO Goldstein Center for Human Rights, He is the editor of Jewish Religious and Philosophical Ethics and the author of two books - John Dewey and Ethics of Historical Belief and The Sorrows of Mattidia.

Review :
This volume is valuable due to its diversity of approaches, its varied notions of art, and the different kinds of suffering it discusses. Whereas in the last two decades, most reflections on suffering within art focused on the Holocaust, the scope of this volume broadens and extends such reflections into a variety of other contexts. -- "Holocaust and Genocide Studies" What does it mean to respond to atrocity with creative talent, be it photography, art or drama? Thought-provoking and wide-ranging in scope, this readable volume offers case studies of interventions undertaken by those whose imagination and skill provided hope, empathy or resilience. An important collection offering new insights into the healing potential of the arts. --Suzanne Bardgett, head of research, Imperial War Museum Institute, UK Artistic Representations of Suffering takes readers on a journey that is painful and ethically complex. It is a book for readers who want to move beyond despair. --Joanna Bourke, author of War and Art: A Visual History of Modern Conflict and professor of History at Birkbeck, University of London For anyone interested in the intersection of human suffering, human rights, and creative practice, this collection of essays assembled by professors Celinscak and Hutt provides an important and timely overview of the state of the art in scholarly thinking about what art and artists have (and have had) to say about the experience of traumatic violence during war and genocide. Contributors draw deeply from many different disciplines and sites of interdisciplinary production, artistic genres and cultural traditions, theoretical perspectives, historical periods, and conflicts. In doing so they grapple with some of the thorniest questions complicating our understanding of what it means to represent others' suffering, how such representations have and should practically be undertaken, and what purposes they might and do serve. The contributors represent a compelling 'who's who' of leading thinkers in this area - established as well as emerging scholars, artists, activists, and scholar-practitioners. At a time when the struggle to defend human rights and secure social and political justice has intensified globally in the face of armed conflicts, growing right-wing extremism, and illiberal nationalisms, this volume's contributions speak loudly for art's power to illuminate the lives of others, heal wounds, and foster reconciliation and mutual respect. --Adam Muller, professor and director, Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Manitoba